So Sir Stephen Tindall is stepping away from the company he created, the Warehouse.

From a company he created in a garage, the big Red Store has become part of the New Zealand landscape.  Its shops have sprouted in towns across New Zealand, providing Kiwis with affordable goods and towns with valuable jobs.

With $200 million his pockets he’s decided to dedicate the rest of his life to inspire his fellow countrymen to better themselves.

It’s something he’s already well versed in.  His Tindall Foundation has looked at social issues and invested $160 million worth of Warehouse dividends into New Zealand communities.

The foundation is mostly concerned with education and housing.  On education, he says we appear to have skipped a generation of parents in terms of needs and that we need to teach parents different ways to bring up their kids.

On housing, he talks about an Auckland Primary School where 40 per cent of the students were transient. He knows that all our problems are interlinked.  So the Tindall foundation is starting to look at social housing.  He’s looking at the way to reduce the cost of building. As he is pointing out the housing crisis is an education crisis too. 

He’s also investing in new ideas with his K1W1 investment firm.  It came out of Labour’s hyped knowledge wave which many say failed.  He disagrees saying it’s slow to start but gaining pace.  He has now invested $100 million in 200 tech companies, including superstars like Rocket Lab and Lanz Tech.

But as he finds himself with more time on his hands, he’s also talking the big stuff of an economy.  He wants more green energy, more and cheaper homes, more smart tech. 

We talk about when we have hit peak cow.  Well if it isn’t now it soon will be and it’s time to start turning the ship.  Any country like any supertanker takes time to change course.

Like the knowledge wave that was talked about in the 90s and is starting to take shape now.

I’m heartened that we have people like Stephen Tindall around.  People not shackled by the ideas of the past.  People not constrained by the need for immediate power and influence like politicians.  People with long term vision who realise that most of our true goals are beyond tribal politics and petty divisions. People with their eye on the ball.