The Sachin and Adam Show: Recent Episodes
TheSachinandAdamShow
We unpack the stories, lessons and vulnerabilities of the world's most interesting people. Past guests have included the 29th Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull, leading gender equality advocate Elizabeth Broderick and Airtasker founder Tim Fung. Along the way you'll hear about our journey as we work towards our life's mission and navigate our weird and wonderful 20s.
SocialsLinktree - https://linktr.ee/SachinandAdam Twitter - https://twitter.com/Sachin_and_Adam Linkedin - https://au.linkedin.com/company/the-sachin-and-adam-show YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thesachinandadamshow SponsorsZedd Law: https://www.zed.law/Open Source CEO by Bill Kerr: https://www.opensourceceo.com/About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
This week we sat down with David Booth, the co-founder of On Deck. On Deck are the community company that helps people start their startups, having helped launch over 1000 early stage companies. He's since returned to ANZ to join Blackbird as an investor. We talked to him about the wild ride of On Deck, why he's come back to ANZ and what he's learned from investing in over 300 companies.
SocialsLinktree - https://linktr.ee/SachinandAdam Twitter - https://twitter.com/Sachin_and_Adam Linkedin - https://au.linkedin.com/company/the-sachin-and-adam-show YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thesachinandadamshow SponsorsZed Law: https://www.zed.law/ Open Source CEO by Bill Kerr: https://www.opensourceceo.com/About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
This is the deepest Alex Liberman (founder of Morning Brew) has ever gone on a podcast. We delved into relationships, future of advertising, love, creator economy and so much more. If you sit with this conversation it could genuinely change your life. SponsorsZedd Law: https://www.zed.law/ Open Source CEO by Bill Kerr: https://www.opensourceceo.com/About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
This week we reflected on launching companies, context switching, creativity, purpose and so much more with our good friend Max Marchione (co-founder of Superpower). It's special when your best friend is also a world class founder and we recorded a conversation we'd normally have.Maxs company: superpower.comMore S&A: https://linktr.ee/SachinandAdamSponsorsZed Law: https://www.zed.law/Kinde: Kinde.com
Episode Four of our Build in Public Series. A raw journal of us building a tech company as best friends. We explore the highs, lows, insights and the funny moments in between.This week we talked about our launch week!
Links
- Linktree (all socials)
- Youtube
- Youtube Vlogs
- Newsletter
- Instagram
About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
Georgia is the superhuman co-founder of Human Health an app that allows you to track and manage chronic health conditions. Prior to this Georgia was head of product at Canva. We dived deep into her early motivations, founder psychology, relationships, challenges and so much more.
More about Human: https://www.human.health/
Zed Law: www.zed.law
Links
- Linktree (all socials)
- Youtube
- Youtube Vlogs
- Newsletter
- Instagram
Episode Three of our Build in Public Series. A raw journal of us building tech company as best friends. We explore the highs, lows, insights and the funny moments in between.This week we explored relationships as a founder and work-life balance!
Links
- Linktree (all socials)
- Youtube
- Youtube Vlogs
- Newsletter
- Instagram
About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
We talked with the writer David Perell. He’s a well known writer on the internet, frequently writing about technology. He also is the founder of How I Write. We talked with him about seminal pieces, authenticity, religion and more.
Links
- Linktree (all socials)
- Youtube
- Youtube Vlogs
- Newsletter
- Instagram
Sponsors
- Kinde
About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
Episode two of our Build in Public Series. A raw journal of us building tech company as best friends. We explore the highs, lows, insights and the funny moments in between.Socials
- Linktree
- Vlog channel
- Newsletter
About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
Daniel Petre is the godfather of Technology in Australia. He was a VP at Microsoft, Founder of Ecorp, Airtree and has served on a number of boards. Daniel is currently the founder of Start Giving inspiring a new culture of giving in Australian tech.
Links:
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/TheSachinandAdamShow
Newsletter: https://kindling-weekly.beehiiv.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sachin_and_Adam
Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/company/the-sachin-and-adam-show
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesachinandadamshow
SponsorsKinde: https://kinde.com/About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
Introducing our Build in Public Series. A raw journal of us building a tech company as best friends. We explore the highs, lows, insights and the funny moments in between.
Links
- Linktree (all socials)
- Youtube
- Youtube Vlogs
- Newsletter
About us We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors. Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
This week we interviewed Katherine Boyle, a partner at a16z, which is the world's largest venture capital group. Katherine leads their American Dynamism practice which invests in founders and companies supporting the national interest: aerospace, defense, safety, education, and manufacturing.We talked all about Katherines values, identifying cultural shifts in the world of tech and American Dynamism.
Socials
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/TheSachinandAdamShow
Newsletter - https://kindling-weekly.beehiiv.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Sachin_and_Adam
Linkedin - https://au.linkedin.com/company/the-sachin-and-adam-show
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thesachinandadamshow
Sponsors
Kinde: https://kinde.com/
https://www.viridianlawyers.com/#
About us
We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors.
Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
Elicia McDonald is a partner at Airtree Ventures, one of the leading VC funds in Australia (where Sachin used to work). Airtree has invested in many unicorns including Canva, Pet Circle, Immutable, Employment Hero and Linktree.There's a lot to admire about Elicia. She's hyper intelligent, analytical, emotionally intelligent, focuses on the work and has a sharp awareness of what's really important in life. We talk to Elicia about drivers, the effect of her mums sickness, learning sales as a VC, personality traits and much more.
Socials
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/TheSachinandAdamShow
Newsletter - https://kindling-weekly.beehiiv.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Sachin_and_Adam
Linkedin - https://au.linkedin.com/company/the-sachin-and-adam-show
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thesachinandadamshow
Sponsors
Kinde: https://kinde.com/
https://www.viridianlawyers.com/#
About us
We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors.
Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
Joining us, is a former guest, Malcom Turnbull. As most people know him, Malcolm Turnbull was the former Prime Minister of Australia and had an extensive career across law, journalism and has written a number of books. What not as many people know, is that he was one of the early investors of technology companies in Australia and had a large role to play with the development of the startup ecosystem in Australia, with his innovation policy during his time in politics. We chatted to him about his involvement in the tech industry and his current views on a number of issues in tech concerning social media, Australia’s attitude to risk and more.
Socials
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/TheSachinandAdamShow
Newsletter - https://kindling-weekly.beehiiv.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Sachin_and_Adam
Linkedin - https://au.linkedin.com/company/the-sachin-and-adam-show
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thesachinandadamshow
Sponsors
Kinde: https://kinde.com/
https://www.viridianlawyers.com/#
About us
We tell the raw stories of the world’s tech leaders, by asking the vulnerable questions that no one else does. Guests have included former Prime Ministers, unicorn tech founders and the world’s top investors.
Join us for these interviews and get a real behind the scenes look into 25 year old best friends building the company of their dreams.
This week we sat down with the founder of Hustle Fund, Elizabeth Yin.
Hustle Fund is one of the most well known pre-seed brands in the US and has over $100 million of assets under management.
In a former life, Elizabeth was an entrepreneur, worked at google and was a partner at 500 startups. We chatted to her about all her career learnings and how she has built such a strong VC brand.
This week we were joined by one of the most insightful and storied technology leaders Wesley Chan. Wesley started his career as chief of staff to Larry Page and Sergey Brin the Google co-founders. In this role he founded Google Analytics, Google Voice and Google Ventures. Wesley then went on to become the managing director at Felicis ventures before co-founding FPV ventures. We dived into Wesleys learnings at Google, his early life, why he is motivated by acceptance and the characteristics of a great investor.FPV ventures: https://fpvventures.com/ This episode is also sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Mention our name for a cheeky discount. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
We talked with Nicole Quinn, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, one of the leading VC firms in the US with over $20 billion of AUM.
She focuses on early stage consumer internet companies and has invested in breakout startups like Calm and Cameo. Before this she was the head of US consumer research sales at Morgan Stanley.
We chatted about her early life, the influence of her mentor Jeremy Liew (who lead Snapchat's first investment), how she wins in consumer investing and what to look for in great consumer companies.
This week we were delighted to be joined the legendary Abheek Anand partner at Peak XV (formerly Sequoia). We dived into how Abheek manufacturers luck, founding a company that was acquired by Facebook and becoming a great investor at Sequoia. We also spent some time talking about the future of VC in SEA.
Peak XV: https://www.peakxv.com/
This episode is supported by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the employment hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/e...
This episode is also sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week we were delighted to be joined the legendary Abheek Anand partner at Peak XV (formerly Sequoia). We dived into how Abheek manufacturers luck, founding a company that was acquired by Facebook and becoming a great investor at Sequoia. We also spent some time talking about the future of VC in SEA.
Peak XV: https://www.peakxv.com/
This episode is supported by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the employment hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/e...
This episode is also sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week we talked with Ben Thompson, who is the founder of unicorn startup Employment Hero.
Ben is the first repeat guest on The Sachin and Adam Show and is said by many to be one of the great tech CEO's in Australia.
We chatted with Ben about how he has navigated growing his company during the difficult macro environment, some of the new products he's releasing and how he thinks about business strategy.
We are also very lucky to have Employment Hero support us as a sponsor of the podcast. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the Employment Hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/employer-of-record/
This episode is also sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week we were delighted to have Jonathan Hsu, co-founder of Tribe Capital. We discussed Jonathans upbringing, background in physics, the invention of data science, takeaways from being a partner at Social Capital and building Tribe. We learnt so much from this conversation and it’s not one to be missed.
Tribe Capital: https://tribecap.co/
This episode is supported by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the employment hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/e...
This episode is also sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week on the podcast you won't be hearing from us and instead from the folks at The Startup Podcast. This is one of our favourite startup podcasts in Australia because of how tactical it is for founders. We decided to post it on our feed this week. Enjoy!
Episode Description
We’re all storytellers. It’s the way we first begin to learn and it's the way we have communicated important information for thousands of years. However, it is the skill we practice the least. As startup operators, if you were a better storyteller imagine what you could accomplish. You would be able to engross and inspire potential investors and employees in any situation and be able to explain features better to your teams and get more work done. How, you ask?
Today we say “F*ck the Slides” with special guest, author of the upcoming book, storytelling expert and passionate salesperson - Nir Zavaro. In this episode Nir and Yaniv explore the importance of storytelling for founders. In doing so they delve into the “trailer” and “toilet” pitches, when to use them and how crucial they are for a founder to get right. Nir’s knowledge and experience is on show in this one, don’t miss it!
This week we interviewed Vinny Pujji, the founder of Left Lane Capital, a NY based venture fund that has over $2 billion USD of assets under management. What's remarkable about Vinny is his accelerated timeline: he left Insight Partners at only 27 years of age to start his firm. We chatted about his background, motivations, investing style and building a VC.
This episode is sponsored by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the employment hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/employer-of-record/
This episode is also sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week we had the pleasure of talking to Dr Andy Kuper, the founder of LeapFrog Investments. Andy has been a personal hero of ours for a long time showing that you can have profit and purpose at the same time. LeapFrog has reached 250m with its portfolio companies in developing nations whilst performing strongly as a fund. We dug into Andy’s past, impacts of studying philosophy and the journey of building LeapFrog.
More about LeapFrog: https://leapfroginvest.com/
This episode is also supported by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the employment hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/e...
This episode is sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week we talked with Maxine Minter who will become the first female solo GP in Australia after she started her $10 million pre-seed fund Co ventures! She has had a fascinating journey which saw her going from being a lawyer in Australia to moving to San Fransisco where she went to Stanford, becoming a founder, starting an executive coaching business and now being back in Australia.
We talked deeply about who she is as a person, her journey towards VC and how she is aiming to win the game of pre-seed investing. She still has some allocation left in her $10m fund so if you want to invest in an extraordinary person whose starting Australia's first pre-seed fund, then reach out to us.
This week we had the honour of interviewing the amazing Rex Woodbury, partner at Index Ventures and author of Digital Native. We dived deep into Rex’s drivers, family unit, sacrifices and journey into VC. We then explored consumer investing, trends amongst Gen Zs and how Rex identifies the best founders. This isn’t an episode you want to miss. Rex’s newsletter: https://digitalnative.substack.com/ This episode is sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/This episode is also supported by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the employment hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/employer-of-record/
We were privileged to podcast James Tynan from Square Peg and announce his recent addition to the Square Peg Partnership. James has had an incredible journey which has seen him traverse McKinsey, Khan Academy, Startmate as well as a number of health problems. We talked to James about ambition, how to balance energy, why Square Peg was the place for him, his passion for healthcare and many more topics. Enjoy the episode!
This episode is sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This episode is also supported by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can get your first months management fee free! All you need to do is go onto the employment hero website and click on the “request a demo” button on the website, and mention Sachin & Adam. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/employer-of-record/.
This week we were joined by one of our good friends (and one of the best young founders we know) Max Marchione. Max is the founder of Next Chapter and UltraViolet Ventures and is currently founding a health-tech startup in stealth. We got into Max’s 100 year goals, how we’ve all changed as people, creativity/intuition and discussions around life as a founder and VC. Enjoy
This episode is sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order. Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This episode is also supported by our friends at Employment Hero. Make sure you search Global Teams by Employment Hero. You can find more at https://employmenthero.com/products/employer-of-record/.
This is a special episode dedicated to the South East Asia Region. We interviewed Peter Huynh of Qualgro and Tushar Roy of Square Peg Capital. They are both Australians who are living in Singapore, spending their time investing in early stage technology companies across South East Asia. We talked about the opportunity that South East Asia presents, how to think about the region and the differences of investing there.
This episode is sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order.
Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week we were joined by Afterwork Principal Jessy Wu. Jessy has built a standout brand in Australia through her unique takes and contrarian views. We dived into Jessy’s upbringing, the power of controvery and branding as a super power. We then went deep into the Australian venture capital market and Afterwork’s story and comparative advantage.
This episode is sponsored by Recess a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order.
Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
This week we sat down with the man of the hour, Tim Doyle. Tim is the founder of one of the hottest startups in Australia, Eucalyptus. We discussed Tims drivers, his competitive and contrarian nature and his lessons in business. We dived deep into his marketing and hiring principles and of course got onto some of his controversial tweets. There were so many takeaways from this episode and we left amazed by how Tim’s brain works.
This episode is sponsored by Recess, a great Aussie startup providing furniture for your home and office. They’ve fitted out thousands of Aussies including the offices of Eucalyptus, Lyka and Afterwork. Use the code SACHINANDADAM for 20% off your next order.
Check them out: https://recess.com.au/
We chatted to Australian venture capitalist Nick Crocker, of Blackbird
Nick has been a partner at Blackbird since 2016 and previously was CEO at Startmate and a serial entrepreneur.
He’s one of the most well known VCs in the country and has played a significant role in the Aus startup ecosystem.
We chatted deeply about his career as an entrepreneur and investor but we also got personal on this episode, allowing Nick to reflect on significant life moments, his qualities and why he is the way he is.
If you like this episode, we’d love for you to let us know. We’re always open for feedback or suggestions.
Timestamps:
0:00 start
1:16 why the love for Fred Again?
3:46 where does Nick’s curiosity come from?
6:48 what are Nick’s top 3 qualities?
12:14 what were you like at 23?
17:15 becoming an entrepreneur
22:10 Starting We are Hunted
23:12 was he bold growing up?
29:58 navigating family with living overseas
34:05 how he got involved in Blackbird
43:59 what makes Nick a great assessor of talent?
46:24 can young people be good venture investors?
48:16 judging an investment track record
49:30 reflections on the Australian ecosystem
This week we had the pleasure of chatting to David Shein. David is the founder of Australia’s first unicorn Com Tech, Author of The Dumbest Guy at The Table and the co-founder of the VC fund OIF. We dived into Daves lucky breaks, identifying talent, living a fulfilling life and OIFs mission. This isn’t an episode you want to miss.
Show Notes
Book: Ride of a Lifetime- Bob Iger
Podcast: Master of Scale
Dinner Guest: Mikel Arteta
Favourite Investor: Instaclustr
If he could share something with the audience : Imagine- John Lennon
Todays episode was with Vow co-founder George Peppou.
Vow is a cellular based meat company that has taken Australia by storm in the past few years.
They’re trying to reinvent the food system by creating meat that is grown in labs.
Recently they raised one of Australia’s largest Series A investment rounds at $73.5 million. In todays episode we talk about George’s story, how he started vow and lessons from the whole process.
This week we had the pleasure of chatting to the co-founder of ImmutableX, Robbie Ferguson. Alongside his brother Robbie has built Immutable into a unicorn at 25 years old. We dived into Robbie’s drivers, Immutable X, the case for web 3 and his leadership lessons. Show notes
Immutable: https://www.immutable.com/
Book: The Culture Series- Ian Banks
Podcast: The Tim Feriss Show
Inspirational figure: The Collison Brothers
Music: LoFi and EDM
Crazy house parties: 16th
What do you do to switch off: Socialising and Exercising
One thing you want to leave the audience with: Mindfulness
This week we had the pleasure of chatting to the co-founder of ImmutableX, Robbie Ferguson. Alongside his brother Robbie has built Immutable into a unicorn at 25 years old. We dived into Robbie’s drivers, Immutable X, the case for web 3 and his leadership lessons. Show notes
Immutable: https://www.immutable.com/
Book: The Culture Series- Ian Banks
Podcast: The Tim Feriss Show
Inspirational figure: The Collison Brothers
Music: LoFi and EDM
Crazy house parties: 16th
What do you do to switch off: Socialising and Exercising
One thing you want to leave the audience with: Mindfulness
Exploring the use of Psychedelic for mental health has interested us since the startup of our podcast. There are few things more important than mental health and this week we dived deep into how Psychedelic Assisted Therapy can be the next frontier in treating mental health. We explored Peter’s motivations, the history of Psychedelic the current state of Australia’s mental health system and Mind Medicine Australia.
Show notes: Mind Medicine Australia: https://mindmedicineaustralia.org.au/
Exploring the use of Psychedelic for mental health has interested us since the startup of our podcast. There are few things more important than mental health and this week we dived deep into how Psychedelic Assisted Therapy can be the next frontier in treating mental health. We explored Peter’s motivations, the history of Psychedelic the current state of Australia’s mental health system and Mind Medicine Australia.
Show notes: Mind Medicine Australia: https://mindmedicineaustralia.org.au/
This week we interviewed Ross Chaldecott, the co-founder of Kinde.
They're one of the most hyped startups in the Australian ecosystem, having raised $10m from Blackbird and Felicis Ventures at the pre-product stage.
They’re building developer acceleration tools to help software startups get up and running easier.
We chatted about his journey, design and starting Kinde.
One to keep your eyes out for in the ecosystem.
P.S. Apologies for the dodgy audio, our microphone failed 😞
This week we interviewed Ross Chaldecott, the co-founder of Kinde.
They're one of the most hyped startups in the Australian ecosystem, having raised $10m from Blackbird and Felicis Ventures at the pre-product stage.
They’re building developer acceleration tools to help software startups get up and running easier.
We chatted about his journey, design and starting Kinde.
One to keep your eyes out for in the ecosystem.
P.S. Apologies for the dodgy audio, our microphone failed 😞
This week we interviewed the NSW Minister for Digital Victor Dominello.
Sadly on the day of releasing this podcast, Victor announced he is leaving State Politics.
He was known as one of the truely tech savvy politicians in Australia and had a massive following on social media because of it.
Under his leadership the NSW Government released initiatives like The Service NSW app, QR code check-ins, the Digital drivers license and the Dine and Discover vouchers.
We talked to him about his journey into politics, his learnings and his passion for technology.
Enjoy!
This week we interviewed the brilliant and passionate entrepreneur Ronni Kahn. Through her food waste charity Ozharvest, she has provided over 200 million meals to people in need, all from food that would have otherwise have been thrown out.
She has a remarkable story that took her South Africa to Israel to starting a global organisation.
We chatted to her about her upbringing, the inspiration behind Ozharvest and how she grew it into what it is today.
This week we interviewed Duncan Anderson, the founder of edtech startup Edrolo. Edrolo is out to change the way that students learn in the classroom.
Duncan is an inspirational figure and an incredibly brilliant figure. He's constantly learning about himself, the world and provides so much wisdom to young people about how they can think more deliberately about their career and impact.
We discussed his career development at Goldman Sachs and Google, how he came to found a company, building Edrolo, the edtech ecosystem and more.
Paul is one of our favourite guests we’ve ever interviewed. Apart from saying we were his favourite podcast he was humble and shared so much knowledge. We discussed his drivers, building Seek, Square Pegs story and how he finds balance.
Favourite Book: Sapiens- Yuval Noah Harari
Podcast: Masters of Scale- Reid Hoffman
Influential figure you’ve never met: Nelson Mandela
Investment that got away: Linktree
Favourite hobby outside of work: Golf and tennis
What’s a great business that no-one is building: App where users control their data and choose where it gets shared
This week Adam and I sat down in our new studio to have a one on one conversation about life. We got into career updates, goals for the future, balancing our chaotic lives and we played the empathy game live. Enjoy!
Ben Thompson is the business mastermind between many amazing companies including the unicorn Employment Hero. We got into his origin story, the birth of Employment Hero, key business learnings, the future of work, downturn in tech markets and advice for young people. This isn’t an episode you want to miss.
Employment Hero Website: https://employmenthero.com/
We talked to master content creator and investor Sahil Bloom. Sahil had a meteoric rise over 2020-2021, accumulating more than 550k twitter followers and 70k followers on his Substack, as he became extremely well known in the business world for his profound insights.
Whilst we talked with him about content creation and investing, we also dived into a bunch of different topics such as vulnerabilities, relationships, mediating your ego and prioritising in your 20s.
If you like the episode, please send it to a friend! Enjoy
This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with Blackbird Partner Niki Scevak. Niki is a thinker that absolutely blew us away. In this episode we discussed how the study of history and psychology can improve your investing, his wisdom to his 23 year old self, career frameworks and how he plans to build Blackbird into one of the best firms in the world.
Shownotes:
Book: Poor Charlies Almanack
Podcast: Invest like the best
Inspirational leader you’d love to have dinner with: Elon Musk
Number one skill of a great venture investor: Imagination and belief
If you were 25 right now what problem would you be working on: Biology and Biotech
Habit that’s made you great: Reading
More on Blackbird: https://blackbird.vc/
More of our podcast: https://linktr.ee/TheSachinandAdamShow
Disclaimer: Airtree is one of Australia's biggest VC funds, not crypto funds, as was mistakenly said in the introduction.
This week we talked with John Henderson, a partner at Airtree Ventures which is a leading Australian venture capital firm. John acts as the lead in Airtree's crypto and web3 investments and he's previously been an entrepreneur, operator, consultant and lawyer. Just recently Airtree raised $700 million worth of funds, with $50 million of that dedicated to crypto and web3 investments.
This episode we dived deep into understanding the crypto and web3 movement. This entailed talking about the movement from web1 to web3, what web3 really means, decentralisation, web3 use cases, NFT's, other thematics John is passionate about and how he makes investment decisions.
Sir Ronald Cohen is known as 'the father of British venture capital' and the 'father of impact investment'.
He brought venture capital to the UK through his firm Apax Partners, which went on to control over $50 billion of assets and was one of the earliest investors in Apple. Then at the age of 60 he wanted to focus more on social issues so he pioneered impact investing throughout the world by partnering with governments and creating the firms Bridges Funds Management and Social Finance. He’s also recently written the brilliant book ‘Impact: reshaping capitalism to drive real change’.
He talked to him about how leaving Egypt during the Suez crisis influenced him, how he founded Apax Partners at 26, his thesis for impact investing and his reflections on life.
Ronald’s work in impact investing have been a terrific service to humanity and his life is a testament to his hard work and passion.
This week we had the pleasure of talking to one of Australia’s top artists Danielle Weber, whose painted portraits of famous people around the world and has accumulated over 200k instagram followers. We wish we were cool enough to be artists and her perspective to life blew us away. We dived into Danielle’s experience working with people like Dwayne Johnson, Danielle’s creative process and what it feels like to create art. We discussed how NFTs are transforming the artistic landscape and why Danielle is now selling digital art.
Show notes
Danielle’s Website: https://daniellesartwork.com/
Favourite book: Happiest Man on Earth - Eddie Jaku
Favourite podcasts: Joe Rogan
Inspirational figure you’ve never met: Oprah
Favourite hobbies: Food and wine
Our book: https://www.rising-tide-startups.com/
This week our good friend Max Marchione interviewed us in a new podcast format called 'Sidetracked with Max'. This series of conversations is to present a more personal side of us, whilst having fun and engaging chats about topics we're passionate about.
This episode we chatted about self-awareness, confidence, digital identities, how to predict the future, exponential technologies and crypto.
This week we had the absolute honour of chatting to the CEO of Deloitte, Adam Powick. We spoke about Adams working class background, how he made career decisions and his lessons in leadership. What’s remarkable about Adam is his ability to balance authenticity and character with the more serious nature of leadership and we dived into how this developed. This episode is loaded with gems on career and life for everyone. You are in for a treat!
Show notes
Currently reading: Dark Emu- Bruce Pascoe
Podcasts: Sporting Podcasts
Favourite sporting legends include: Mark Taylor and Greg Norman
Inspirational Leaders: Nelson Mandela and Angela Merkel
Hobbies include: Cricket
Favourite Dumpling: Truffle Dumping Din Tai Fung
This week we talked to Sam Wong who is a partner at Blackbird Ventures, one of Australia’s most successful venture capital firms.
In today’s episode we talked about investing ethically, how she makes investment decisions, the trends in startups she finds most exciting and advice for young people who are interested in technology.
Before entering VC, Sam was a lawyer for Minter Ellison, worked in product and strategy at SurfStitch and co-founded a company called CapacityHQ.
This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with the visionary that is Fred Schebesta. Fred is the founder of Finder, a crypto titan and the author of ‘Go Live! 10 Principles to Launch a Global Empire’. We went deep with Fred discussing human behaviour, space, how to find great ideas, the Metaverse and living a better life. Get ready for some conversations that will blow your mind!
Show notes
Freds book: https://www.fredschebesta.com/go-live
Book: The 7 habits of highly effective people
Podcast: Invest Like the Best, Acquired, Masters of Scale
Inspirational figure: Ben Horowitz and Bill Campbell
Hobbies: Minecraft
This week we interviewed African entrepreneur Kaivan Sattar. Kaivan started the digital bank, Asaak, which lends to people in Uganda who previously could not access credit. They have grown dramatically over the past year and are now doing over $1 million US in revenue per year.
We dived deep into the development prospects of Africa, Kaivan's founding story and the vision he has for Asaak.
Before founding Asaak, Kaivan worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, Grameen Bank and studied at Colombia and NY University.
For transparency, both of us made an angel investment into Asaak earlier this year.
This week we had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Mark Carnegie, one of Australia’s top business titans. Mark was trained on Wall Street by James Wolfensohn and started the investment bank Carnegie, Wylie & Co. Mark then became the CEO of Lazard Australia and later on started M.H.Carnegie & Co, where he works today. We spoke to Mark about his career, what young people should be working on and the world of Crypto/DEFI. Mark is a massive advocate of crypto completely changing the world and we were fascinated to hear his thoughts. We honestly think this podcast was as informative as a business degree.
Show notes: More on Mark: https://www.mhcarnegie.com/our-people
Recommendations by Mark: Poor Charlies Almanack Tim Ferriss and Balaji Podcast: https://tim.blog/2021/03/24/balaji-srinivasan/
Quick fire: Book: Remembrance of Times Past, LBJ biographies. Podcast: Tim Ferriss and Balaji. Inspirational figure you’ve never met: Charlie Munger. Hobby: Trout fishing and sailing
This week we had a 1 on 1 together and chatted about what we've been doing recently, the direction the Sachin and Adam Show is taking, our recent Angel Investment into a Fintech company, and our life in lockdown. Enjoy!
0:26 Introduction
2:50 What we’ve been doing
8:05 Why we’re passionate about technology and venture capital & what we’re building
24:46 Our angel investment into Ugandan Fintech company Asaak
35:15 Learning from online communities
40:40 Life in Lockdown
We had the pleasure of sitting down with James Alexander, one of the youngest people to launch a venture capital fund in Australia. James is a technologist at heart and after studying computer science co-founded one of the first University startup accelerators, Incubate, where he has helped 100+ startups launch their ideas.
What you will learn from this episode
- How James developed his love of technology
- The process of starting Incubate
- The characteristics of a great startup founder and Jame’s favourite companies
- The journey of starting a VC fund at a young age
- The trends in business and innovation across the next 10 years.
Enjoy!
Show notes
Favourite book: The Black Swan- Nassim Taleb & The Beginning of Infinity- David Deutsch
Podcast: A16Z Technology Podcast
Person: Galileo
Hobbies: Collecting music and Djing
This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with the amazing Moses Lo. Moses studied at UNSW and begun his career as a management consultant at BCG before moving to Silicon Valley to pursue entrepreneurship. After completing an MBA from Berkeley, Moses was selected for Y Combinator (YC) where he started his FinTech company, Xendit. We dived deep into Moses’s upbringing, why he chose management consulting, the experience of YC, scaling Xendit in Indonesia and the differences in culture between Australia and the US. Enjoy!
Show notes:
Moses’s Company: https://www.xendit.co/en/
Moses’s Blog: https://www.moseslo.com/
Book: High Growth Handbook- Elad Gill
Podcast: Masters of Scale- Reid Hoffman
Famous Figure: Martin Luther King
Hobby: Manual Labour
2 years ago when we accidentally started this podcast we joked that if there was one person in the world we could talk to, it would be the 29th Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull.
Through a lot of persistence and luck, 60 episodes later we got to meet our hero.
We spoke to Malcolm about the key experiences that defined him as a person, how he was able to build relationships with the most powerful people in Australia in his early 20s and how he reached the highest level of success across industries such as Journalism, Law, Investment Banking and Politics. We then dived into his time as PM and how he was able to maintain his individuality and sense of self. We then moved to a discussion of Malcolm's vision for Australia and how future leaders can step up to address the challenges that lay ahead. We finished off the episode with a round of quick fire questions and asked Malcolm that if he could write a letter to his 22 year old self, what would he say?
Thank you for everyone that’s been on the journey so far and we hope you enjoy the episode.
This week we interviewed Robbie Robertson, who is Sydney Leader of Deloitte Digital, Deloitte's digital consultancy arm. Coming from a design background, Robbie is fascinated about the interaction of design principles, sensory experiences and creating new products.
We talked to him about how he perceives design, what design consulting looks like and the principles for building the future.
Rowan Kunz is the founder of education business Art of Smart, which does tutoring and mentoring for high-school students. Art of Smart has helped over 6,000 students with their high-school education, their transition to university and with career advice. Rowan was Australia's Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019. Previously, he also founded and sold two other educational businesses. Rowan studied Arts/Law at The University of Sydney.
We talked to him about how he made the decision to start Art of Smart whilst at uni instead of applying for Law clerkships, how uni students should think about optionality when making career decisions and the realities of youth unemployment.
This week we had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with the most energetic man we’ve ever met, Muhan Zhang. Muhan was the first employee on Andrew Yangs presidential campaign, started a business out of college and currently runs the angel investing community, ’Startup Investing for All’. We went deep into the journey of a presidential campaign, Andrew Yangs values, the relationship with technology and inequality, universal basic income and feeling connected with your work.
Show Notes
Muhan’s Website: https://muhanzhang.com/
Quick Fire Round
Favourite book: Ultralearning- Scott Young
Podcast: Brene Brown (Unlocking Us & Dare to Lead)
Inspirational figure: Mr Money Moustache
Hobbies: Cooking
Matt Allen is the founder of Tractor Ventures, a revenue based financing company that provides an alternative to traditional venture capital for technology startups. He is also a prolific angel investor, having invested in over a dozen startups and has achieved an IRR of over 50%. He previously worked at Amazon Web Services, co-founded a number of companies and spent his early days working in software development.
Our conversation with him ranged from talking about what he gained in his early career in technology, his method of angel investing, why he felt it was important to start Tractor Ventures and the trends in software companies he is currently witnessing.
Book: Turn the ship around
Podcast: The Startup Playbook
Kirstin Hunter is a co-founder of the super company Future Super, which manages over $900m of assets. Future Super focuses on creating a world without climate change and inequality, so they invest their assets into sustainable companies and ignore fossil fuels and harmful companies.
Before Future Super she worked in management consulting at Bain & Co for six years and was also a solicitor at Freehills for two years. Kirstin studied arts/medicine/law at UNSW.
Our conversation ranged on the topics of Kirstins years at university, what she learnt working in the corporate world, how her passions developed towards social justice and sustainability and her journey of co-founding Future Super.
Book: The Great Gatsby.
Podcast: Masters of Scale.
Inspirational Figure: Jacinda Ardern.
This week we sat down with each other to reflect on our lives and discuss some of the topics we are currently interested in. We spoke about our favourite guests on the podcasts, how we’ve both developed over the last few years, NFTs, decentralisation and new technologies. We then turned to discussing our future goals, learnings from university and how we want to be living in our 20s.
This episode also marks the launch of our website: https://www.sachin-and-adam-show.com/
Phil Moffitt was a partner at Goldman Sachs for 20 years before starting the impact investment firm, Beckon Capital. In this episode we discussed Phil’s upbringing and his journey to the biggest prize on Wall Street. We then dived deep into his study of psychology and his reasons for co-founding Beckon Capital and the firms philosophy, diving deep into 'impact 3.0'. We finished off discussing his advice for future leaders and as always finished off with a quick fire round of questions
Show notes:
https://beckon.capital/
Book: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Podcast: The Jolly Swagman Podcast
Hobbies: Surfing, Sail, Skiing.
Harry Guinness is CEO and co-founder of Australia's newest think tank, the Blueprint Institute. The Blueprint Institute "exists to inspire reform with bold ideas, honest conversations and evidence-based research".
Before starting Blueprint, Harry had a wide-ranging career that saw him playing professional rugby for the Brumbies, studying at Oxford, working in the Attorney General's office focusing on countering violent extremism and working as a foreign policy adviser to Julie Bishop.
We discussed with Harry the lessons he's learnt from his extraordinary career, why he decided to start a think tank and the political issues that he is most passionate about.
Book mentioned: The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle
Podcast mentioned: The Argument - NY Times
Peter Corbett is a partner at Deloitte, the Sydney head of Monitor Deloitte and is Deloitte's National Telecommunications Sector Leader. He's been advising companies on strategic business decisions at Deloitte for over 15 years. Before that he worked at Macquarie Bank and started a number of companies.
We talked to Peter about why strategy is important in business and how to think strategically, long-term strategic narratives for media, telco and tech businesses and some advice for students in their 20's.
Books/Podcasts mentioned:
Playing to Win- Alan G. Lafley and Roger Martin
The Pyramid Principle- Barbara Minto
Masters in Business- Bloomberg
This week we sat down with the ever inspiring Rohit Bhargava. Rohit’s podcast ‘The Startup Playbook’ is ranked number 3 on iTunes and he has interviewed the likes of Malcom Turnbull and Cal Henderson (co-founder Slack). We spoke to Rohit about his experiences with failure, avoiding a linear career path, his learnings from guests and his passions for business. Rohit has had the opportunity to aggregate the wisdom from hundreds of the worlds business leaders and has his own experiences founding diverse businesses. His reflection and insights are extremely relevant for those considering stepping off the beaten track.
Recommendations
Atomic Habits- James Clear
Can’t Hurt Me- David Goggins
Masters of Scale- Reid Hoffman (podcast)
Peter Bruce-Clark is a partner at the venture capital firm Social Impact Capital. Social Impact Capital specialises in impact investing, which are investments that achieve strong financial returns whilst also making social impact in the domains of energy, water, food, health, environment, education, housing, access to capital, and social justice. He also makes angel investments and has previously worked with organisations such as Real Capital Innovation, Kalytix and PwC.
We chatted to him about his career journey, how he identifies great investments and how he combines his vision of social impact with venture investing.
Books and podcasts mentioned:
Severance - Ling Ma
Masters in Business - Bloomberg
This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with a visionary that well and truely blew us away, Jack Manning Bancroft. Jack is the founder of AIME, an award-winning social movement that uses mentoring and imagination to unlock the potential of marginalised youth to create a fairer world. Jack has been working on AIME for the last 16 years and in that time created the largest uni student volunteer movement in Australian history, taken 15,000 indigenous students out of inequality and successfully closed the educational gap for each cohort. Our conversation included Jacks vision for the world, how he grew AIME, advice to future change makers and his journey with spirituality. Enjoy!
More about AIME: https://aimementoring.com/
This week's guest was Michael Trail, the co-founder of Macquarie Group's private equity business, Macquarie Direct Investment, and was also the founding CEO of Social Ventures Australia (SVA).
Currently Michael spends his time as Executive Director at For Purpose Investment Partners, is the Chair of the Paul Ramsey Foundation and is a director at multiple organisations such as Sunsuper, MH Carnegie & Co, and Australian Philanthropic Services.
Michael details his enormous career across finance, social impact and in non-profit organisations in his book 'Jumping Ship: From the World of Corporate Australia to the Heart of Social Investment'.
You can get the book here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Jumping-Ship-Corporate-Australia-Investment/dp/1743792573
This week we sat down with one of Australia’s startup icons, Airtasker founder and CEO Tim Fung. Most of you will know Airtasker, a platform where you can connect with experts to get any job done. We discussed when Tim decided to leave the corporate world, the origins of Airtasker, what it means to be a good ‘executor’ and technology trends. You are in for an amazing episode.
Books mentioned by Tim
Change Your Questions Change Your Life- Marliee Adams
Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts- Annie Duke
Thinking, Fast and Slow- Daniel Kahneman
This week we sat down with Sean Stuart, author of ‘The Curious Ape’, a book that explores the 25 most powerful ideas on the Joe Rogan Podcast. In true Rogan fashion we had a free flowing conversation about everything from our versions of a utopia, tribes, the war on drugs to mental health. Sean also studies science/law at USYD and interns at the venture capital firm Blackbird. Happy 2021 and enjoy!
This week we sat down with the incredible Michael O’Leary to talk about his career and all things impact investing. We discussed the current downfalls in capitalism before considering what the average citizen can do to make a difference. Michael has studied at both Harvard and Stanford and was one of the founding members of Bain Double Impact (the firms social impact arm). Michael has also written the book ‘Accountable-The Rise of Citizen Capitalism’ which was one of our favourite reads of the year. Enjoy this thought provoking conversation!
Accountable: The Rise of Citizen Capitalism: https://www.amazon.com.au/Accountable-Citizen-Capitalism-Michael-OLeary/dp/0062976516
This episode features Adam Milgrom who is a partner at the Giant Leap Fund, which is Australia's first venture capital fund that is 100% dedicated to investing in impact startups. Predominantly the company targets businesses that focus on sustainable living, health & wellbeing and empowering people. Adam is also a board director at Future Super and Your Grocer.
We talked to Adam about his passion in impact investing and how it developed, some of the companies he invests in and wider trends in the technology space.
Philip Chan has had a phenomenal career spread across human rights law, academia, being a policy advisor and working in the corporate sector. He is currently the Academic Dean of Wesley College and a lecturer of human rights law at Western Sydney University. Previously he worked as an advisor at the UN, was a senior consultant in human rights consulting at KPMG, worked in human rights law for one of the worlds top pro bono law firms, has provided legal advice on the frontline of the refugee crisis and served in public diplomacy at the Australian Embassy. We talked with him about his passion for human rights, what working for the UN was like, global issues and what is necessary for human rights leadership.
This week we got to chat with the incredible Evan Wong, founder of Checkbox. At just 25 Evan has started two successful companies and was recently enacted as a Forbes Top 30 under 30 in the Enterprise Technology section. In this episode we dived deep into how Evan suggests anyone finds their purpose, his plans to turn Checkbox into a $1B company and the pressures of entering a 'prestigious' career at university. This was one of our favourite episodes yet!Checkbox: https://checkbox.ai/ Follow Evan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theevanwong?originalSubdomain=au
This week we talked to David Lu who is a partner at 256 Capital Partners and Virgil Capital, which are both investment firms which specialise in cryptocurrency assets. David became partner at those firms just a few years after finishing his Bachelor of Law/Commerce degree at UNSW. At university he co-founded a venture capital firm called Textbook Ventures and also worked at a number of other VC's such as Golden Gate Ventures in Singapore. We talked to David about his career journey, the experience of being a partner at an investment firm at such a young age and trends in the world of technology, with an emphasis on cryptocurrency. David's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daluie/?originalSubdomain=au
This week we dived into the world of Angel Investing and Venture Capital with local legend Les Szekely. Les is the son of refugees and believes that he had business in his blood from a young age, selling clothes at Paddy's Market. Fast forward a few years and Les was a partner at Deloitte and began angel investing, investing in HotelClub and SiteMinder, the later which is now worth over $1B. Les is also the co-founder of the VC Equity Venture Partners and is an active part of the Australian startup community. We dived into Les’s views on career, his transition from corporates into angel investing and the future technology trends he predicts. You are in for an amazing episode.
This episode features John Treadgold who is a communications and strategy consultant who works with major companies and governments to pursue greater sustainability in their investments. In his career he has worked with the UN, The World Bank and many fund managers. John also has a podcast called 'Good Future' where he interviews business leaders in sustainability, impact investing and social enterprise who are re-defining economics and building companies as a force for good.Much of our focus on this weeks episode was on impact investing, how to combat the issues of capitalism and sustainability. 2:18: What does re-capitalism mean for John? 6:48: What are the problems with capitalism right now? 11:18: The role of ESG policies in shifting business behaviour 17:48: Reframing impact investment from a risk perspective 24:30: Impact in private equity vs public investing 28:08: Are there enough public companies that can be sustainable? 34:42: Is the trend of impact investing here to stay? 39:52: Other examples of public market activism and private impact investment 45:43: Is the future of public companies CSR? 48:04: What does impact mean? 55:55: Advice for university students
This week we were lucky enough to chat to the amazing Lily Wu who is the founder of Austern international and the Head of Programs at NewCampus. Lily has lived an incredibly colourful life that ranges from starting a 6-figure business in high school to being a delegate at Harvard Project of Asian International Relations. We spoke about how she started two incredibly successful businesses, chooses what she wants to do in life and her advise to university students. Lily is an artist at heart and this episode is filled with many interesting stories.
This week we spoke to Kat Dunn who has had an amazing and diverse career. Kat started out in the corporate world, first working for top law firm Clayton Utz and then finding her way to working for an investment firm. After many years in corporate she was able to engage in her passion for social business when she became CEO of Grameen Bank Australia in 2018. After finishing up at Grameen she started working for the social venture capital firm Cataliize. We talk to Kat about these different experiences and what she's learned along the way. 2:10 Kat’s time at University and being president of the Australian Law Students Association 4:30 Combining impact and passion in your career 8:50 What it was like working at a top law firm 11:36 Following your intuition after university 16:30 Starting your own startp-up after uni 20:00 Following linear paths 22:45 The importance of strong relationships in your career 27:08 Best tips for networking & how it helped in Kats career 35:40 The future of Microfinance and companies like Grameen 40:45 Entering the world of venture capital with Cataliize 48:40 Final advice for students
“Marc was the most capable networker I have ever met, he could parachute into any developing country and within 24h arrange a meeting with the president” - Bill Browder, Red NoticeAt 20 years old Marc was the youngest person to run a statewide political campaign in the US, when he headed Ronald Reagan’s Pennsylvania campaign for his 1980 presidential election. He founded one of the first investment banks in Russia following the privatisation of the market. Following that he became president of the University of Denver from 2003-2005 and is now the chairman of a number of banks in Kazakhstan and Rwanda.
This week we talked to Sam Refshauge who has had an incredibly interesting career spanning roles in the for-purpose and not-for-profit sector. We talked to Sam about his journey from working for the Indonesian Rugby team, to being a general manager at AIME mentoring to becoming CEO of Batyr, the mental health organisation, in his late 20s. 1:00 Living in Jakarta working as Indonesia’s rugby coach 9:00 Working as general manager of AIME mentoring 13:10 The journey to becoming CEO of Batyr 18:00 Biggest leadership lessons from Batyr 20:24 Challenges of being a CEO at a young age 22:50 Going on the path less travelled 27:00 Batyrs impact 30:55 Advice for graduates going into a difficult job market 33:15 Sam’s move from Sydney to Byron Bay 36:48 Impacts to the ego from shifting to a CEO in a capital city to moving to a lifestyle oriented life 40:16 Sam’s perspective on his career move
This week we sat down with the extremely talented Elisa Lillicrap. At the age of 21 she has interned for a Y Combinator company, won the Hult Prize in the Asia region, completed the ASES course at Stanford and co-founded a startup Logieq. We spoke up her experiences in Silicon Valley, asked her what businesses the world needs now and discussed if innovation can sometimes go too far.
This week we interview Peter Stevens who is the founder of financial newsletter 'Insufficient Capital'. Peter is a keen investor who writes about his different trades and investing beliefs on a regular basis. He also studies Commerce/Engineering. Insufficient Capital Website: https://insufficientcapital.com/Insufficient Capital Twitter: https://twitter.com/insufficientcap 2:16 Why Peter is interested in financial markets10:46 Principles for investing14:03 The rise of the retail investors24:25 ASX market overvalued or not?38:28 Brokerage firms in Australia45:00 The macroeconomy53:53 Quantitative easing and inflation60:01 Where Peter see’s himself in the future
This was an incredible episode where we got to chat with Michael Batko, the CEO of Startmate. We spoke about his journey from the corporates to startups, most impressive founders his met, his systems of thinking and as always his advice to university students. Highly recommend this episode to anyone that's interested in startups, productivity or confused about their direction. Show notesMichaels Blog: https://batko.substack.com/ or https://medium.com/@michaelbatko Startmate: https://www.startmate.com.au/
This week we tried something a little different. Join us for a drink as we ask each-other a couple of spontaneous questions and get chatting about geo political tensions, reflections on university and our political views.
This week we spoke to Brendan Ma who is an Investment Banker with Goldman Sachs, a UN Youth Director and an Australian delegate to the G20 Youth Forum. Previously he has also been a tutor at Sydney University and worked in the legal industry. We spoke with him about his research in Chinese debt lending in the developing world and the human rights implications of this as well as other geopoltical topics. We also spoke about his work in the finance industry and the impact that can be created through finance. 1:39: Brendan’s thesis on Chinese lending 4:55: Implications of Chinese lending on foreign power struggles 7:34: Implications for human rights 14:00: Key learnings from time at Uni 18:20: Creating impact through finance 26:30: What’s it actually like to be an investment banker? 30:10: Foreign relations in a post-coronavirus world 37:20: Advice for Uni students
This week we talked with Bryan Jordan who is creating a food-tech startup called Streamplate and also studies Neuroscience and Engineering at The University of Sydney. We chatted about the journey of creating a tech startup whilst being a student and some of the complexities involving neuroscience. We certainly learned a lot during this episode.
Elizabeth is the founder of Males Champions of Change, former NSW Australian of the year, Sex discrimination Commissioner of Australia, a UN Discrimination Against Women Expert and a former partner at Ashurst. She is currently working on Male Champions of Change by using collective leadership to elevate gender equality as an issue of national and international social and economic importance. This was a fascinating episode where we learnt about what men could to further gender equality and we debated about topics such as gender quotas. As always we finished off asking Elizabeth's advice on how to live an impactful life.
This week we sat down with African American Reggie to talk about the racism in America. In the past week we have seen an eruption of protests around the world following the death of George Floyd and we wanted to get a first hand account of racism and what we can do to help the issue. This was a really insightful conversation and we hope that recent events will create a lasting positive change.
This week we sat down with one of the most high profile guests we've had on the show, Paul Jackson. We talked about his long and successful career in radio, how he turned Smooth FM into one of the most successful stations in Australia and chatted about celebrities such as Ed Sheeran. We finished off as always asking Paul about his learnings about life and business. Hope you enjoy!
This week we flipped the switch and had our good friend Jack Jacobs interview us for episode #22. We discussed some of our motivations for the podcast, what we're interested in right now and what our passions are.
In this weeks episode we wanted to bring you guys something uplifting in this time of global turmoil. We asked if anyone in our networks had experiences anything positive as a result of lockdown and we were honestly really surprised with how many people responded. Grab a cup of coffee or a drink and get ready to hear some interesting perspectives from these amazing guests!"There's something bad in everything good and something good in everything bad"
This week we sat down with the Head of History of Loreto Normanhust, Marco Scali. Marco Scali is a fantastic and inspirational high school history teacher who has a wealth of knowledge of 20th century history, amongst other periods. We chatted to him about how the Coronavirus is effecting education in Australia, how we can compare this event to other historical episodes and how leaders fare during times of crisis. Marco has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in History from Macquarie University.
Rahul is an E.R Doctor working in Birmingham who treats patients with Coronavirus on a daily basis. This week we sought to uncover a few things from Rahul including; what is life like on the frontline? How does COVID-19 kill people? and do masks really work? We learnt a lot, had a few laughs and also found out why Rahul doesn't want to stay a doctor long term.
This week we talk to Kirsty Hosea, a partner at Deloitte Digital about her journey, the consulting world and tips for students looking for graduate jobs and internships. We finished off by talking about the effects of COVID-19 on business and society.
In our first isolation episode we sat down with Margaret O'brien an amazing female leader who has worked in corporate marketing, started a school in Cambodia and is the current CEO and co-founder of Young Change Agents. We discussed her life journey, advice for young people and what we can all do in a world filled with corona virus anxiety.
Andrew Riis has founded 2 past business's at the age of 22, he has been flown out to India by none other then Muhammad Yunus and truly lives life on his own terms.
This week we do something a little different. We're not interviewing anyone but instead talking about the books we've read that we believe are the most impactful! These books have been tried and tested and if studied really well they can produce amazing results. The books in no order are Think and Grow Rich, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Power of Now, Zero to One and Tools of Titans. Enjoy!
Back for 2020! This week we sit down with former bodybuilder and current bodybuilding coach Patty Roach. We talk about his journey, what it's like for your body going through a bodybuilding competition and the mindset changes he's made along his fitness journey.
Just a quick update about what were doing this year, what we did during the summer holidays and why we changed our name!
The last few months have seen Sachin had 2 friends take their own life. Mental health problems are becoming more apparent and talked about in society and something that we are both very passionate about. In this episode we spoke to Evonne Englezos, psychotherapist and CEO of inspired to thrive. She gave a psychoanalytic perspective of all things mental health; especially delving into the deep roots of why people suffer from mental illnesses and what people might be able to do to overcome them. We also spoke about her experience battling depression and the challenges that come with it.
This week we sat down with Tiaan Stals from Stake to talk about the future of technology. Tiaan studies Computer Science at Sydney Uni and works at the Financial Technology company 'Stake'.
This week with talk with podcaster Dougal Cameron about some recent events in US politics like Trump's impeachment and other key political issues. We found this episode really interesting as-well as challenging. Dougal's podcast is called 'Carnage House Productions' where he interviews politicians and commentators about contemporary issues.
After a brief break, due to Sachin's bodybuilding contest, were back for Season 2 of the series! In this episode we talk to Jack Jacobs again. We decided to talk to Jack again because he is absolutely fascinating and got a great reception after talking to him a while ago.In this episode we dive into Jack's essay he's been writing on the effects of social media on democracy , morals and compromise in public life, the Climate strikes and talk about future ambitions. Enjoy!
This episode Sachin and Adam reflected on the previous podcasts and the guests they had on. What did they learn and what insights did we gain from some of them? We also had a chat about Sachin's mens physique bodybuilding contest that he's entering in 4 weeks time. The preparation for this competition has seen Sachin working hard in and out of the gym and we talk about how it's affected his mind and body. We then talk a bit about the future. Where are we now and where are we headed? It's been a while since our last podcast but very soon we hope to be doing them consistently again :)
For Episode 7 we talk to Dr Tim Sharp, also known as 'Dr Happy'. Tim Sharp is one of Australia's leading researchers in positive psychology and happiness. Tim started one of Australia's most successful clinical psychology practices in Sydney, started an Organization's called the Happiness Institute, has taught at all of Sydney's major universities and has worked with a large list of highly respected corporations such as Twitter, Coca Cola, EY, WESTPAC and KPMG. Tim has 3 degree's in Psychology including a PHD.
As a teenager David Mifsud was heavily overweight and had a huge lack of confidence. To overcome these problems, David went on a long journey of self development of the mind and body to get to where he is today. David currently owns the Gym 'The Body Shapers' and also runs a marketing business that helps other small businesses grow. This episode we chat to him about fitness, the building of a strong mindset, entrepreneurship and how we can develop ourselves. Dave constantly spits gold nuggets of wisdom so listen up kids.
PART 1As a teenager David Mifsud was heavily overweight and had a huge lack of confidence. To overcome these problems, David went on a long journey of self development of the mind and body to get to where he is today. David currently owns the Gym 'The Body Shapers' and also runs a marketing business that helps other small businesses grow. This episode we chat to him about fitness, the building of a strong mindset, entrepreneurship and how we can develop ourselves. Dave constantly spits gold nuggets of wisdom so listen up kids.
Today we discuss food waste with Donny Chien and his journey as an entrepreneur. Donny Chien founded YWaste in 2017 which is a business that connects food merchants who have surplus food at the end of the day with consumers who want to save on their meals. The business has seen massive success, reaching #4 on the Australian app store as of lately and being partnered with over 400 food merchants. Donny is a passionate and authentic character who is on a mission to solve food wastage in Australia and around the world.
We caught up with Rizvi Mridha for episode 4 and talked about entrepreneurship for University students and the process of starting a business. Rizvi co-founded bimble, the tinder for travellers in 2013 and it became the most successful crowdfunded mobile app in Australian history, at the time. He then co-founded Hampr, the thriving corporate catering business where he now works. Previously Rizvi has received 3 degrees from ANU, worked in economic policy and as a consultant for KPMG
This week we caught up with Jack Jacobs a Philosophy and Law student at the University of Sydney. Whilst undertaking studies he volunteers at Redfern Legal Centre and works as a research assistant. He is also a keen reader, ex-head prefect of Newington College and an overall incredibly interesting person.
On our second episode we have a chat with Maya Eswaran. Maya studies Arts/Laws at USYD and is currently on the board of the University of Sydney Union (USU), is a member of the USYD debating team (best student debating team in the world) and heavily involved with Activism on campus. Unfortunately only half of the actual video got recorded!
First podcast by Sachin and Adam. The point of this podcast is to just have some casual conversations with people we find super interesting. This first episode was just with Sachin and myself and we talked about some of our reflections from our recent exchange to Utrecht, Netherlands. Next week were going to start bringing some guests on the show