The Bottom Line, The Bottom Line, Decisions That Made Me: Richard Farleigh (former Dragon, entrepreneur)

The Bottom Line

The Bottom Line

Decisions That Made Me: Richard Farleigh (former Dragon, entrepreneur)

May 8, 2025

16 minutes

Available for over a year

Richard Farleigh grew up poverty-stricken in outback Australia as one of eleven children. When he was an infant, he was taken into care and spent the majority of his childhood in a foster home. A love of puzzles, a determination to prove himself, and some teachers who believed in his abilities, helped him gain a scholarship to university. From there he became a successful investment fund manager, eventually retiring at 34 to become an entrepreneur, and later an angel investor. The former dragon talks to Evan Davis about his new book Humble Stumbles, and how some of his early entrepreneurial decisions didn’t work out quite as well as he’d hoped.

Production team:

Producers: Eleanor Harrison-Dengate

Editor: Matt Willis

Sound: John Scott

Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison

Photo credit: Visual Marvels