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Don’t Be An IT Fashion Victim – a conversation with Digital Expert Roberto Capodieci
0 Playsin 8 hours
When enthusiasm for buying the latest technology is based on what others are doing the purchase is often a cost instead of an investment.
Roberto Capodieci was a childhood IT protégé who set-up his first IT company at the age of 14. Nowadays he is a consultant specialising in decentralized systems architecture, and digital transformation strategy.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Roberto describes to host Michael Millward the mistakes companies make when considering investments in IT. Amongst these many mistakes he highlights, selecting vendors who do not fully understand what they are selling, and simply buying something because it is new.
Roberto explains the value that an independent perspective can bring to the IT investment process, and the techniques he uses to help companies ensure that they are investing in what they need, instead of what they think they need.
Many purchasers, says Roberto, simply do not understand what the technology they are interested in will do, and more importantly what it will not do.
As an example, Roberto explains what the different developments of the internet including Blockchain, are designed to do.
Listening to this programme will help you understand how to make better IT purchasing decisions.
Discover more about Roberto and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. The all-in-one podcasting platform really does make making content so easy. All the details are in the description. Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abyssaida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:29
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abusida.
Guest Introduction: Roberto Capo Di Achi
00:00:34
Speaker
Today, i will be learning about IT and internet fashion victims from Roberto Capo Di Achi, an internet entrepreneur who's based in Indonesia.
00:00:46
Speaker
It is time to make an episode of the Independent Minds. That will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Hello, Roberto. How are you doing today?
Challenges in Name Pronunciation and AI Training
00:01:04
Speaker
Hello, and thank you for having on your show. and thank you for the effort in saying my name my name okay it is roberto capodiaci and that's uh and that's perfectly okay i mean i mean i heard the many version of ah my family name is actually interesting we use them to train an ai to recognize my name whoever says it is me i am going through a ah ah phase of having guests on the independent minds who have great names, which with my English language skills mean that they're quite difficult for me to ah to pronounce correctly. But I do try, I do try. And it's a brilliant name, Cappucciniacci is so Italian. It's fantastic, it's so fantastic. I'm imagining
Living in Indonesia and Travel Club Mention
00:01:52
Speaker
you sitting there in Giorgio Armani and all sorts of Italian things, drinking cappuccinos. You're very right with the cappuccino.
00:02:06
Speaker
But you're not in Italy. You're based in Indonesia, which is not somewhere that I have ever visited. But if I was going to go, i would make all of my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because that is where I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains and package holidays, as well as all sorts of other travel related purchases. There is a link to the Ultimate Travel Club and an offer code in the description.
00:02:31
Speaker
Now that we've paid a mortgage and we've met Roberto, hello again.
Career Journey Across Countries
00:02:36
Speaker
Please could we start, Roberto, with you telling us a little bit about your career and how you ended up living and working in Indonesia.
00:02:44
Speaker
Right. So, well, my career spans many years. I will say I started learning coding when I was a little kid. I was ah five, six years old when I really started writing code on my own. At 10, I was selling video games that I developed myself.
00:02:59
Speaker
And at 14, with authorization of courts for miners, I opened the first company to actually then start selling software to companies. And by the time I was 18, I had 40 people working, 40, 45 people working with me. and approaching a nervous breakdown work for this organization in which my company grew, but for for sure it's been a great experience. Then ah I flew to the United States where I've been in and out, but I spent ah pretty much 12 years over there. um
00:03:33
Speaker
Then when Bush got re-elected, quality of life wasn't great in the United States after four years of his administration. So I decided to go to the other big power, which is China.
00:03:44
Speaker
And I started studying Chinese, but I couldn't make much of it. So I thought I'd go to Singapore, where they speak both English and Chinese, and maybe I can learn Chinese over there. And when I was in Singapore, every other weekend I was flying to Bali to enjoy this place. Bali is a tropical island of Indonesia. And one day I said, what I'm doing, I just moved there. And I took all my stuff and I moved to Bali. And it's 20 years, 21 years now, next April, that I live here. So, you know, it's a very beautiful place. Once you are established here, it's hard to think somewhere else to go to. So I really love Bali.
00:04:23
Speaker
Business is easy done from Singapore, which is a very short flight from here. It's about two and a half hours of flight. and is one of the top hubs in the world for business of finance and technology. So I think I set up everything at the best. Three of my four people were born here in Bali, Indonesia anyway, so it's really home now.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, so it it sounds like you've got everything sorted. It's all ideal. Yeah, as a guess I've become 50 last year. So that's a good milestone as well in life. My only one son that doesn't live with me is in Italy. He had a son himself, so I'm grandpa now
Experiences in Business Startups
00:05:05
Speaker
in 2025. So, i you know, i all the check marks are set. as So I guess ah everything is good.
00:05:13
Speaker
Congratulations on becoming a grandfather as well. yeah And in regarding the career, well, that's what I've been doing all my life since I was a kid. a started company. I've been employed only two months in my own life. For the rest, that I've been ah starting, running and selling company or closing them. depends on the case. And I love to do that. so you were something of a protege an early at an early age of a technical technology protege and developing video games and now um doing all sorts of that of different things with the with the internet and with technology yeah i've been lucky to be in the right place at the right time and to have this capacity to focus on these three instincts and i pioneered them so
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I think that with the wide range and experience that you've had, you've seen all sorts of different organizations doing all sorts of things with technology, but there's so many things happening in terms of technology and it's only the pace of change is increasing all the time and it's only going to get faster, I reckon.
Risks of Trendy Technology Adoption
00:06:20
Speaker
But that has a big danger for organizations and individuals in that you can jump on the next big trend and it might not actually be the right trend for you and what sort of issues and challenges have you seen organizations having to face because they've made the wrong decision around some form of technology
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, this is multifaceted, I guess, so because ah you will find the company that are in troubles for whatever other reason in their own organization and they think that adopting ah you know like a new technology will save them and from their troubles. between you know like There is no way that a technology can do that.
00:07:02
Speaker
It's also true that one company in the stock market of Hong Kong, a company doing fruit juices, I think, iced tea to drink, handed the name blockchain in their name just many years ago and suddenly the stock went up 400% because ah you know the use of this trendy word was something that ah if somebody do that means it's going to be great soon. and I would say that the many times people don't understand the a technology well, mostly the decision maker in a company, but they feel left behind if they don't adopt it, so they try to push it in in any way they can, even when it's not the actual case to be adopted. Other times, there maybe be they have a use case that ah no emerging technology can satisfy, but the they, because the vendors
00:07:56
Speaker
Also are jumping into new trending technology without knowing them very well. So it may happen that a company that they feel that they have the need the has a vendor that ah is selling this and not understanding it to them themselves.
00:08:13
Speaker
And obviously they try to sell, so they don't care much. And I saw most most of the cases that I saw artis are these, are companies that wanted to do actually a step ahead. They had a vendor that was selling a new technology they didn't know. and brought the client into troubles with investment, with changing of ah the way their business model was working without actually coming out with a functioning solution.
00:08:39
Speaker
So, most of the time it's better to hire an external consultant, there's no direct investment interest ah in the execution of the project. ah to understand well if ah they are guided in the right direction and also to help them understand what it really means and not what they just read in a couple of articles in some newsletter or whatever it is about the technology.
Cautious Technology Adoption and Decision-Making
00:09:03
Speaker
yeah And then they can do a more informed choice. It sounds a little bit like when a new car is launched.
00:09:11
Speaker
And people said, I've got the new version of whatever car it is. And they're the first adopters. there's ah It's actually a technical term for it. The first adopters of the new car, first adopters of the new technology.
00:09:24
Speaker
I was always told like as a teenager when started talking about cars and thinking about which cars to buy and the the latest, greatest models. And they gave me some advice, it's like, yeah, wait a year until after it's launched. So they've ironed out all of the little niggles in the way that it's designed and they've built and they've learned about how it actually works in practice.
00:09:45
Speaker
And it seems that you're you're saying the same sort of thing is like, if you don't know exactly how you're going to use a new piece of technology, the best thing is to do is to wait and see how other people use it. And then decide how you might use it as well. well is Yes and no, meaning that if you want to lead the an industry by adopting emerging technology in the right way, you cannot wait other people to adopt it because then you use the leader position, right?
00:10:13
Speaker
So I will say there are different things. For final users, I remember with cell phone, for example, company like Nokia. I mentioned a company that doesn't have market share now, so I don't get in trouble. But Nokia came out with a lot of very interesting phone. And their policy was really...
00:10:31
Speaker
create a new model with all the problems, the bugs, that the issues it can have, put it on the market. ah The fanboys are going to be the ones that buy it first, ah and then they're going report the the bugs, and they fix it, and they come with a second release that is okay working okay. In fact, the Nokia phones ah were those two you need to buy the second release if you want a working product.
00:10:52
Speaker
But a lot of ah people that love to show off were those that buy the first release because they're going to look like ah you know like the people that queue in front of Apple when the new model ah is out. you know They do it also for ah the possibility to make their Instagram video with the last model of the phone, etc. So they use it not much the technology, but it's the trend.
00:11:15
Speaker
When it comes to businesses and not final users, ah which are final users by our companies, not people to say, then it's much more serious the topic because ah if the adoption of a trendy technology is done for marketing purposes, then it's better to start a side project that has no effect on the rest of how things work ah than there is the possibility to claim ah that the the latest technologies are used even without putting a risk the rest.
00:11:43
Speaker
If they are actually technology, they are being introduced in the core business and the and the core procedure or how the company works, then it must to be must must be a very informed decision and not just...
00:12:00
Speaker
you know, something done in a rush is very dangerous. so Yes, done in a rush. I think there is a little pang of pang of guilt in some ways, just listening to that and saying, oh, yeah, there are problems with every piece of new technology.
00:12:13
Speaker
and But sometimes you do need the functionality of the technology to work so that you can then so take advantage of, commercial advantage of what that new technology can do. but one of the things you're saying about business is if If you're not equipped to use the technology, then it's not going to save you, turn you around, deliver all sorts of products.
00:12:37
Speaker
You need to have the technical knowledge as well in order to apply the technology into your business model. Yes, either directly inside the company or with an external, which is easier, you know, like consultant that either educates the people that will do the implementation. ah But before educating the people that do the implementation is much more important to educate to the decision-maker in the adoption of the technology. so I personally do consulting and often I'm called on the you know first to say, okay, but how is your preparation on this and this topic and this particular kind of use of this technology and I said, okay, i had experience with company or I know very well these things, e etc., etc., or I don't know
Consulting Process and Realistic Expectations
00:13:23
Speaker
if I don't. But in the positive case, I fly there and I have a two, three days meeting with a top decision maker where we discuss the technology. I explain these people the real aspect of the technology, not just the the buzzing news that they are around. They explain to me the business model where they want adopt it ah and they need to try to sell it to me more than me to them.
00:13:46
Speaker
in the moment that the it makes sense ah So there is ah a logical reason to invest ah and you know try. What I suggest first is ah to do the combination of R&D and you know like ah proof of concept ah implementations ah and then move from there, I guess, because that not always that things are good.
00:14:11
Speaker
So the adoption of AI now, everybody's doing AI, but there are processes for which AI is worse than than just a piece of software. know so That is true. I like what you said there about how you're the expert in the technology. An organization brings you in to help them assess whether the technology is right for them.
00:14:31
Speaker
One of the things that you ask them to do is to sell to you the reason why they want to buy the technology. Yeah, obviously. Yes. Yeah. So it's it's like hitting it from both sides in that we like the idea of this technology.
00:14:47
Speaker
Does it fit with what we actually want to achieve? Will it help us achieve the objective? And you're trying to analyze that. is Yeah, it's the moment I discover if they are delusional or ah they are for real, know, like...
00:15:01
Speaker
We want to take AI because none of our 150 salesmen is selling anything in the past one year. With with AI making phone calls to people, we're going to sell a lot. to and no Probably not.
00:15:11
Speaker
Maybe. you know like ah But if they say, you know we have ah millions of documents to analyze ah that are coming feedback from clients, we want to extract the top 10 things. but But probably, yes, is the best solution. So I mean, just now, these are two serious examples, but to to give you extreme...
00:15:27
Speaker
example where official make sense other than It's finding the business purpose for the technology and then making sure that people who want to use the technology for that purpose understand what the technology will do and also what it won't do.
00:15:45
Speaker
yeah There are two sides to the technology purchase coin. You must have realistic expectations, I suppose, of what the technology yeah is supposed to do, what it will do for you and how you actually make that technology deliver value into your organization.
00:16:01
Speaker
Absolutely. But I like if you tell me about poetry in Arabic, which is a beautiful sounding language. I cannot judge if a poetry in Arabic is good or not because I don't know Arabic to start with. I can say, look, it sounds nice to me. Maybe it's terrible grammar. I don't know. And many times, the pretence to think that you know something, why somebody took years to get to the depth of the understanding of a particular thing, somebody just reading a few articles or a book, things that they know. I mean, for sure they know better than those that didn't do anything at all. Actually, Sometimes those that don't know anything at all are better clients than those that think that they know.
00:16:41
Speaker
Because with those that don't know anything, you just need to explain. To those that think that they know, you need to remove the wrong knowledge and then pass the good the knowledge. So it's a longer you know path for a consultant in terms of ah preparing them ah to what to understand what they want. is yeah Unlearning something that you think you know can be more difficult than learning something new because it's your view, your opinion, your your knowledge.
00:17:11
Speaker
And it can be feel very challenging when someone comes along and says, well, actually, you what you what you believe to be correct isn't actually correct. It can be a very challenging experience for anyone.
Impact of Past Knowledge on Tech Decisions
00:17:24
Speaker
But it' it's a whole sorts of issues and challenges and problems. I particularly like the story you tell about an organization that's called the blockchain, before blockchain was invented, and found that the value of their shares had increased because people thought they were a blockchain organization, but they weren't.
00:17:42
Speaker
and I'm looking back over my experience in in technology and thinking, yeah, what sort of decisions would I have made if I'd known then what I know now?
00:17:53
Speaker
How would decisions be different? And it is a big sort wake up call to think, okay, if I'd known this about it, I wouldn't have done that, or I would have done something different, or I would have operated it in a slightly different way.
Development from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0
00:18:08
Speaker
Even the development of the internet itself and the different versions of the internet has been in recent, you recently quite an enlightening Yeah, an enlightening experience for me. you know There are three different versions of the internet and then you've got blockchain and and the whole way in which it developed.
00:18:26
Speaker
One is just, well, what is Internet One? Let's go through these. Right. So it is interesting because ah what is called Web One, Web Two, Web Three, you can find in here so many definitions online that are not really much correct.
00:18:45
Speaker
And the there is also Web Zero if you want really to go deeper into these things. So ah networks, the network that support the Internet, so the TCP or IP kind of network,
00:19:01
Speaker
It is ah something that has born way before the web page, let's say. So it was a way to connect ah application with routing system to find a way to destination, even if part of the network is taken down, right? So that protocol has been applied to what were initially university, but starting with the army, though but the university and other things in order to connect the many networks that were limited and isolated to create the the internet, right?
00:19:30
Speaker
then people found the idea of accessing servers with content ah in different way before there was an application that was but similar to a terminal and that allow people to connect ah to a server and using the command line or somebody basic graphic interface ah go inside that that server using ip addresses And then the domain name came out, so people started opening websites, they had content, they were static most of the time, so you go to the website, find the information, and the users were jumping from a website to another with the HTML, the hyperlink, textual hyperlink, right? And this was Web 1, so where we consume information, in a dynamic manner.
00:20:20
Speaker
So let's say we go in a website, talk about houses and the houses of the garden, there is a tree and there is a link in the tree to go to a website that that talks about trees ah and the insects that are in the tree and there is the link on the insect and I go to a website to talk about insects and so on. So we surf the web, that was the idea, in a way that was a web. So it's web 1.0. Usually the first version never had the 1.0 because people never think that they go to the second one. So it was the web 1.0.
00:20:49
Speaker
Then people understood that they can run an application in this website. ah They make that dynamic. So I go there, i log in with a username and a password, and I see some content ah that is ah crafted for me because it's a message for me, it is ah the choice of a particular thing, or it's a game that I'm playing where I do several things. So...
00:21:12
Speaker
This is Web2. Web2 is where we have ah an identity in each website we go, because we use a username and a password in each website. And this can be different, it's different from the next website where we go. So it's like if we have a multiple personality, a different personality, a different universe for each website where we go, we log in and it's closed there.
00:21:36
Speaker
Web3.0, which is achieved thanks to blockchain technology, Because there is no more authentication done with the username and a password on the server, based on authentication done with the cryptographic signature by the user, the name of the account, if you want, is identical in all the different websites.
00:21:58
Speaker
And the thanks to the blockchain, ah the identity can be attached to some information that goes together with the user wherever he log in. So if I log in on a website, that they can check the blockchain related to my account and they can see that I have B and C. And they can use this A, B and C in their website.
00:22:17
Speaker
In the moment that I log in on another website, the the identity is the same one. So also the other website, they can see that i have A, B, and C. And use this thing in their website. It is is Web 3.0. Nothing to do with the virtual reality, 3D, etc., etc.
00:22:33
Speaker
Because those are things that can be deployed on top of ah a place where my identity goes around what it means that ah if i serve ah five websites with video games i can go to the first website ah and i buy a golden sword then i go to the second website and they can see that i have a golden sword because this golden sword is in the blockchain connected to my account so when i play the second website i'm gonna have my golden sword if it's compatible and so on. ah So I bring with me moving teeth in the everyday life. ah For example, I can go to the dentist in a place. ah They do the x-ray of my mouth. I keep this x-ray in my Web3 identity. Then I'm traveling for a holiday. I'm on the other side of the planet and I have a toothache.
00:23:19
Speaker
I can go to the dentist and they can access with my authorization the x-ray of my teeth. So they see when it's been done, the signature of the dentist that made it for me. So I can bring with me pieces of ah my personal information and disclose them to who I want, but they are scriptographically signed and guaranteed. So this is WebTree that is used also for virtual reality, what they call the metaverse and other things, but that's just ah an adoption of the opportunity the WebTree gives.
00:23:51
Speaker
So what is going to be web 4? idea. I already registered web9.com, the domain name, waiting for the web. drive that I don't know. But you see, when you explain that to me, I'm thinking like, yeah, now I know.
00:24:07
Speaker
Now it doesn't take very long to get a straightforward explanation of how the internet works and the different functionality of all the different types of internet.
Simplifying Technology Explanations
00:24:18
Speaker
And... then you start to think with a commercial hat on and say so what information have we been collecting without really knowing how we're going to use it and then you can talk about cookies and people authorizing the use of cookies or selecting what cookies they want to have attached to their use of your website but there's almost an element of because somebody wants to be the expert, wants me to believe that they're the expert, wants me to trust them as the expert, the actual situation needs to be more complicated than it needs to be.
00:24:55
Speaker
And I suppose one of things is that if you are not a technical person, you do need to find an expert who doesn't want you to know that they're an expert, who's actually going to who's going to explain the technology and the language that you can understand rather than trying to demonstrate that they know more than me.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, I honestly have a particular... and this dislike, if you want, ah from people that try to use very complex vocabulary just to put the interlocutor in a position of inferiority and up appear better just because they can say these words that the other person barely understands. I think that this is the failure on communication, right? If I can communicate in a such a manner that everybody understands me and put them in a comfort zone to stop me if I don't understand something so I can explain it without embarrassing anybody.
Connecting with Roberto and Networking Platforms
00:25:49
Speaker
I think that's the best way that I can help people. If someone listening to this wanted to get more of your straightforward explanations, what is the best place, the best website to contact you on?
00:26:04
Speaker
LinkedIn is ah the social network right that of excellence for these things. And the URL to open my profile is very basic. It's like the classic linkedin.com slash IN. rc10 rc like roberto capodiaci one zero we'll put a link in the description but for today roberto it has been really very interesting thank you very much i appreciate your time today ye thank you very much for having me here i am michael mill ward the managing director of abeceda and i have been having a conversation with the independent mind roberto capo diachi hope i said that one correctly
00:26:41
Speaker
Yes. Great. Roberto Capodiacci, who is an independent expert in the internet technology. You can find out more about both of us at abucida.co.uk. There is a link in the description.
00:26:55
Speaker
I must remember to thank the team at matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Roberto. If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests or someone like Roberto who has something very interesting to say,
00:27:10
Speaker
Matchmaker.fm is where great hosts are matched with great guests. There is a link and a membership discount code in the description. if you're listening to the independent minds on your smartphone, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
Episode Conclusion and Engagement Encouragement
00:27:27
Speaker
So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:27:42
Speaker
The description includes links to many of the things which were discussed in today's episode. So that description is well worth reading. If you've liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:27:59
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:28:12
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.