Interview with David Potter CBE

“Value and wealth come from creating things, not making things”

“If you want to know what’s going on, look at the bits, not the atoms”

“Software is the virtual machine”

“Today information replaces capital in inventory management”

Early Life

David Potter was born on 4 July 1943 in South Africa. His grandfathers had been born in England but emigrated to South Africa. One was an accountant, and the other a professor of engineering at the University of Cape Town – the father of engineering in South Africa. His father died when he was very young and whilst he grew up believing he did not need one, he reflects that not having a father was a formative part of the person he came to be. His grandmother was one of the first university woman graduates, having read Classics in the 1900s. It was an academic family. She played the role of a mother in his early life, as his own mother went to work. He was very close to his sister and together they developed the myth that other people’s parents came to watch their children in school events, such as swimming galas, because they were hopeless and needed the support. Their parents were not able to come. By the time Potter was 10 his mother had remarried and they moved to what is now Zimbabwe.