The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal #235 Steve Hind: Forging Lorikeet’s Exponential Growth With Unlearnings from Debating, Bridgewater and Stripe
Episode #235 features Steve Hind — Co-Founder & CEO of Lorikeet, one of the fastest-growing AI companies backed by QED Investors, Square Peg, Blackbird and the founders of Canva.
In this conversation, Steve traces his journey from growing up in regional Queensland to competitive debating, and then an unconventional path across BCG, Bridgewater, BuzzFeed, Stripe, Watershed and a Harvard MBA.Steve shares the lessons that shaped him: the discipline and thick skin he built through debating; the customer-first mindset he learned at Stripe and why he left; the performance culture and feedback systems he absorbed at Bridgewater; and the downsides of having strong opinions in environments that demand alignment.
He also breaks down Lorikeet’s early pivot, how the team found real product–market fit after painful false starts, and the company’s rapid rise to US$75M+ raised in under 12 months.
He explains why Lorikeet backs high-accuracy AI agents over copilots, how he thinks about safety and evaluation, and what he’s learned about building product, culture, ambition and customer trust while scaling globally.
It’s time to explore your curiosity — please enjoy.
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The High Flyers Podcast is described as a "meticulously researched biography" that uncovers the untold stories of remarkable people and companies -- redefining the "high flyer". Launched in 2020, we have ranked in the global top ten podcasts for past two years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200 episodes released. Excerpts of the podcast have been featured in Forbes, AFR, Daily Telegraph, and showcased at SXSW.
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