I listened to an interview recently that reframed how I think about progress.

Saul Klein — one of the UK's most successful tech investors — was being interviewed on The Rest is Money, the podcast hosted by Robert Peston and Steph McGovern. Klein was making the case that Britain is the world's third-largest innovation economy. Not by aspiration or potential. By evidence. There are 800 high-growth companies in the UK doing over £25 million in revenue. That's more than France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands combined.

But here's what struck me. When explaining why this has happened, Klein kept returning to the same phrase: "in spite of."

In spite of government. In spite of policy. In spite of bureaucracy. In spite of the planning system, the funding gaps, the lack of infrastructure.

McGovern — who isn't just a journalist but also a business owner — made the point viscerally from her own experience. She'd just launched a fitness business in Newcastle. Two years of council bureaucracy. Landlords causing problems. Business rates changing. Employment regulations shifting. "And we've still done it," she said.

That's the "in spite of" economy. Real people in real places just getting on with stuff.

The myth of the right conditions

There's a seductive idea that success requires the right conditions. The funding has to be there. The strategy needs to be approved. The training programme must be in place. Leadership has to be aligned.

It sounds sensible. It's also a trap.

Because the evidence suggests something different. The 800 companies Klein cites weren't waiting for conditions to improve. Neither was McGovern. The entrepreneur who builds something meaningful rarely does so because the environment made it easy. They do it because they decided to do it anyway.

This isn't motivational poster territory. It's pattern recognition. At my last company, almost every significant improvement happened in spite of the official process, not because of it. The projects that went through proper channels often stalled. The ones that got done were usually started by someone who just began.

The AI skills gap and who will close it

During the interview, McGovern raised the UK's skills problem. She's regularly in further education colleges. She talks to businesses about skills gaps. The picture she painted was stark: not enough people training in the subjects the economy needs, colleges underfunded, equipment outdated, a real gap between what businesses need and what the education system produces.

She's right. The gap exists.

But Klein's response was instructive. "When you say problem, I hear opportunity."

He pointed to Amazon, which has spent years turning warehouse workers into data scientists. Not because the government created a programme for it. Because Amazon decided their workforce needed those skills and built the training themselves.

This is where "in spite of" becomes practical.

The businesses that will have AI-literate workforces in 2027 are not waiting for further education colleges to update their curricula. They're not waiting for government funding to materialise. They're not waiting for someone else to train their people.

They're doing it themselves. In spite of the infrastructure not being ready.

Why this matters now

I've spent the past few months building an AI training course. Not because someone asked me to. Because I kept having the same conversations with business leaders who knew AI was important but didn't understand what it could actually do for their operations.

The colleges aren't teaching this. The consultancies are charging a fortune for surface-level overviews. The free resources online are either too technical or too breathless about the future.

So I'm building it. In spite of not being a professional trainer. In spite of the curriculum not existing anywhere I could copy it from. In spite of the fact that what AI can do is changing faster than any course materials can keep up with.

That's not heroic. It's just what happens when you stop waiting for the conditions to be right.

The uncomfortable corollary

Here's the part nobody likes to say out loud.

If you're waiting for conditions to be right, you're probably not going to do it.

The skills gap will not be closed by government policy. It won't be closed by better funding for FE colleges — though that would help. It will be closed by businesses who decide their workforce needs these capabilities and take responsibility for building them.

Klein made this point about innovation more broadly. The 800 high-growth companies weren't created by policy interventions. They were created by people who just started.

The same will be true for AI adoption. The companies that figure it out will be the ones that started experimenting before they had permission, before the strategy was finalised, before the training budget was approved.

In spite of.

The takeaway

Stop waiting for the right conditions. They're not coming — at least not on your timeline.

If your workforce needs AI skills, build the training. If your processes need automation, start experimenting. If your industry is being disrupted, begin adapting.

The evidence is clear. Progress happens in spite of obstacles, not after they've been removed. The question isn't whether the conditions are right. The question is whether you're willing to start anyway.