FROM ROCK BANDS TO WORLD-LEADING TECH

In the small Hawke’s Bay village of Raupunga, entrepreneur Sir Ian Taylor grew up in a state house with little material wealth, no electricity and no car. But there was always food on the table, helped by the occasional bucket of surplus crayfish dropped off at the door, and he didn’t want for anything.

‘‘I believe that I have been brought up in the best generation,’’ the 71-year-old says of his upbringing in the 1950s. ‘‘When I was growing up, having a job wasn’t a great obsession and the houses were affordable.’’

The businessman still lives in the first house he bought in Dunedin with his wife, Liz Grieve, and where his sons grew up – and lived for extra family support when grandchildren were on their way.

Taylor says he looks at the desperation of people in today’s ‘‘crazy’’ housing market and wonders when a house moved from being somewhere you lived to a place you made money from. ‘‘It’s heartbreaking, really. Today there’s divisions everywhere. There’s the digital divide, there’s the economic divide, and there’s the racial divide.’’

Of Nga¯ti Kahungunu and Nga¯puhi descent, Taylor runs award-winning firm Animation Research, which produces graphics for some of the world’s biggest sporting events. He has shot to prominence in recent times because of his part in a trial attempting to convince the Government and officials that businesspeople should be allowed to travel overseas and self-isolate at home on their return.

Taylor says he’s worried that the Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating divisions in society, with a new divide being driven between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

While he’s no great fan of the type of protests held by Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki, which he says put everyone at risk, Taylor feels for children who have lost teachers they loved because they are unvaccinated.

He believes more respect is needed for everyone’s views as well as an embracing of the Pacific concept of talanoa, where people listen with respect to others’ views, even if they disagree.

‘‘It makes a difference,’’ he says. ‘‘Some people might genuinely fear it, and having someone tell you that some scientist is guaranteeing you that you are wrong is not a great comfort.’’

Taylor draws on a wide background of life experience, having toured for three years with a rock band, served in the army under compulsory military training, worked in a bottling plant at Speight’s Brewery, studied law, and been a kids’ presenter for TVNZ before setting up his own production company.

He built his graphics business from scratch, initially in partnership with the University of Otago, achieving a breakthrough when his firm’s real-time 3D graphics package was used to track America’s Cup yachts for the first time, in 1992.

‘‘I’ve only ever done things I’ve really enjoyed,’’ he says.

‘‘I never set out to build a business, and even now I don’t think of myself as a businessman. I certainly don’t think of myself as an entrepreneur.

‘‘I don’t understand those labels, and it might seem really simplistic, but I just wake up every day and go to work.’’

It is a matter of pride to him that everyone who started with his company 32 years ago is still with the business. The 40 staff members, he says, are ‘‘a family’’.

He hasn’t taken a pay rise in 18 years, having vowed not to until all the ‘‘incredibly talented’’ people in the company are being paid what they are worth.

Ironically, the Covid disruption may have accelerated that process. Constraints on travel prompted his business to centralise its operations in Dunedin, reducing costs, improving efficiency, and allowing the team to film more events remotely than they ever could have done on location. ‘‘Covid has taken our business to a whole other level that we could never have imagined,’’ he says.

Taylor, who has voted Labour in all but two elections, says he is frustrated that business input does not appear to have been valued as part of the pandemic response.

‘‘Politics should have nothing to do with this,’’ he says.

‘‘The country is facing a huge challenge like we have never faced before. But every sign I’m seeing from either this Government or officials that are working in this Government is that they are not interested in what business can bring.’’

He’s not keen to get into politics, though, saying it would drive him mad.

What he is passionate about is his latest project – an online education programme, Ma¯tauranga, which celebrates Polynesian migration across the Pacific to Aotearoa thousands of years ago. He hopes it will inspire children, especially Ma¯ori and Pasifika, to believe they can pursue science and technology.

He’s hopeful that sharing such stories will ensure the nation’s children are fully informed as they grow together.

Taylor, who has a Ma¯ori mother and Pa¯keha¯ father, came under fire earlier this year from Wellington businessman and former Hurricanes board member Troy Bowker for his online post celebrating Aotearoa’s Polynesian ancestors and their Pacific navigation. Bowker called it ‘‘a load of absolute nonsense’’ and accused Taylor of ‘‘sucking up to the left Ma¯ori-loving agenda’’.

Taylor says the reaction came as a huge surprise to him. But he believes Bowker was ignorant rather than racist. ‘‘Some people are just ill-informed,’’ he says.

‘‘What I was seeing was somebody who had never heard the story. We can change all that silly stuff in less than a generation.

‘‘By the time these kids come out of school, they will have learnt the story about Ma¯ui and about Kupe, and they will have learnt the story about celestial navigation and how brilliant it was.’’

Looking back on his life, Taylor says his pathway now seems clear thanks to the Ma¯ori whakatauki, or saying, ‘‘Ko nga tahu a o tapuwai inanahi. Hei tauira ora mo Apopo,’’ which translates as: ‘‘The footsteps we lay down in our past create the paving stones on which we stand today.’’

He says: ‘‘I look back and everything makes sense. It makes it much easier to take your next steps as well because they are really taken in context. You are never really guessing.’’