The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

Paul Bassat is the Co-Founder of the Venture Capital firm, Square Peg with operations in Australia, Singapore and Israel. Previously, he co-founded the success story that is the online recruitment website, Seek. He was born and lives in Melbourne, Australia.In this episode #130 w Paul Bassat, learn about:Paul’s sunrise in Melbourne, Australia with European heritage with his parents coming to Australia as refugees and mum being a holocaust survivor from Poland. Paul shares the influences of his mum, a lawyer and dad an IBM executive, and his two older siblings.I loved asking Paul about his personality in high school, dreams at age 18, the two catalysts to leave his law career and start Seek in the 90’s (note: startups were not a thing back then) — and he’s candid about various parts of the Seek story that haven’t been shared before including the structure of the co-founding team, competing with large incumbents and market leadership in China.We dive deep into the transition from Seek to Square Peg, including living in France with his family, the ways in which the founder experience helped and hindered his investor role, the importance of founder’s having awareness of investor conviction in follow on rounds, and his most painful learnings. And we unpack what Paul would do if he was Australian Prime Minister for a year and how he would like to leave a legacy. 🎉 And our 7-star events are back! Yes as many of you know — we are a special series of LIVE fireside conversations in May and June. Tickets are quickly selling out for event #2 with James Tynan, Partner at Squarepeg, get your ticket today HERE! 💥It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***💥 This episode is brought to you by Fullstack Advisory, Australia's top tech accounting firm, designed specifically for innovative tech founders and investors. They provide founder-friendly support across Accounting & Tax, R&D Tax Incentives, Bookkeeping, and CFO Advisory -- so you can focus on what you do best, innovating and growing your business. Get in touch with Stuart and the team today! ***02:47 - Where were you born and live now? 03:09 - What was your first job and now?03:55 - High Flyer in Paul’s life04:47 - Sense of identity as an Australian and Jewish06:36 - Smartass or studious as a child? 08:00 - Sporting heroes08:54 - Success at age 1810:31 - Being the youngest of 3 siblings 11:41 - Catalysts to start Seek in the 90’s16:20 - Sponsor message featuring Full Stack Advisory17:00 - Foundational learnings about team management 20:20 - Three groups of competitors22:18 - Market leadership in China 25:04 - How did he succeed as CEO27:50 - Learning about investing as a profession29:30 - Leaving seek and living in France35:05 - Sponsor message featuring Full Stack Advisory35:50 - The birth of Square Peg Capital38:20 - Realities of transition from founder to investor40:45 - Raising their first fund 44:18 - Brand awareness and high conviction investing 47:41 - Lack of Founder awareness of follow on funding50:42 - The VC fund vs the Partner? 52:40 - Most painful learnings to date55:30 - What should Australia do differently?57:45 - Decade goals vs yearly goals01:01:10 - Building relationships, not networking01:04:10 - Being grounded and relatable despite success01:06:35 - Final sprint*** 

Sam Wong is a General Partner at Blackbird Ventures, who exist to supercharge Australia's and New Zealand's most ambitious founders. She was the first hire in their Australia fund and has since invested in companies including Vow, Halter, Harrison AI and led the raising of their inaugural $59M New Zealand Fund, and $80M New Zealand Fund II (2022) + heads up their New Zealand office. Sam was born in Perth, Australia and now lives in Auckland, New Zealand. In this episode #129 w Sam Wong, learn about:Sam’s sunrise in Perth, Australia growing up in and around her parent’s business packing Soundblaster boxes, and influenced by various cultures with mum of Malaysian/Chinese heritage and Dad being half English and half Chinese but grew up in India.This one is wide ranging and Sam is very candid — we cover her highlights from 7 years as a lawyer and influences from early managers that have shaped Sam’s leadership style today as General Partner at the Venture Capital firm, Blackbird.Sam’s been at various vantage points in her career, from law to early stage startup to co-founding a startup to investing so I wanted to know where would she start her career if she could do it again? Learn about her experience co-founding a startup with her partner Ben, biases Sam had to delete switching from founder to investor and we cover the Blackbird story to date, including Sam’s reflections on her investments in companies like Vow and Halter that seemed very non obvious at the time, the story behind raising and building the NZ fund and her most painful learning to date.🎉 And our 7-star events are back! Yes as many of you know — we are a special series of LIVE fireside conversations in May and June. We are almost sold out for event #1 with Niki Scevak on the 18th May, get your ticket today HERE! 💥It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***02:42 - Lowest ego to bad-assess ratio03:15 - Where were you born and live now?03:27 - What was your first job and now?04:48 - High Flyer in Sam’s life06:54 - Sandblasters, Perth, 80s09:08 - Malaysian, Chinese, UK, Indian influences12:32 - Helping others come up the ranks15:50 - Not having a set path at age 1818:00 - Highlights from 7 years in Law20:56 - Niki Scevak’s “2/10 intellectually lazy” feedback26:29 - time bounded experiments and firing yourself every year31:50 - Practicalities of annual reviews32:55 - Building a startup with her now partner, Ben37:06 - Investor and founder biases40:19 - Building success foundations of a VC fund45:38 - Sam’s investments to date in Vow, Partly, Halter, Harrison.AI50:13 - Painful learnings as an investor53:19 - The story behind starting the Blackbird NZ fund58:44 - What would Sam like to change about the world of LP’s?01:01:38 - Final sprint***

Peter Huynh is the Chief Strategy Officer at Harrison AI, and previously spent over a decade as a VC investor in Asia, UK and Australia with Singtel and Qualgro Partners. He was born in Vietnam, and lives in Sydney, Australia. In this episode #128 w Peter Huynh, learn about:Peter’s Vietnamese heritage, especially how his family moved to Sydney, Australia in the late 1970’s and the early challenges they faced as his dad’s medical degree was not recognised meaning he had to study again, whilst Peter and his mum stayed in a small apartment with 9 of his relatives in Wollongong. Peter’s reflections including learning English watching TV shows on the ABC are fascinating!Peter is well known for helping founders and investors with mindfulness coaching, I had to ask him the source of this and he candidly shares his own journey including having teachers for nearly 8 years to understand his own self.We unpack his career including his most formative experiences, with Hutchison Group and Singtel in the UK, Asia and Australia, working with early versions of Spotify and Facebook in 2009 and seeding the Australian startup ecosystem when it was just taking off in 2011.Peter has recently transitioned from a decade long stint as a VC investor to became a startup executive joining Harrison AI as chief strategy officer, hear about why he made this decision and his learnings working at the intersection of health care and AI. It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***02:41 - Where were you born and live now?03:51 - What was your first job and now?05:37 - High Flyer in Peter’s life07:02 - Challenging adjustment setting in Australia as a child11:35 - Learning English watching TV12:42 - The desire to belong13:54 - Relationship with mindfulness and spirituality16:57 - Realising Law wasn’t an enjoyable career path19:35 - Most formative career experience22:34 - Single largest foreign investor in Western Europe23:47 - Re-connecting with Asian heritage24:39 - Working with mobile versions of Spotify and Facebook in 200928:11 - Seeding the early Australian startup ecosystem34:41 - Founding Qualgro VC, building a bridge between South East Asia and Australia36:40 - Learning to build deeper connections with people42:19 - Mindfulness practises during a work day45:42 - Educating his two children on guided meditations46:42 - What led to joining Harrison AI as Chief Strategy Officer54:58 - Government regulations in Health and AI58:17 - Rapid fire final sprint***

Michael Stocks is Head of Strategy & Operations at "FL0", previously he joined the global success story Linktree as one of their earliest hires, scaling the startup to a billion dollar business. He was born and lives in Sydney, Australia. In this episode #127 w Michael Stocks, learn about:Michael’s sunrise, a mix of the Blue Mountains in Sydney and Malaysia — his parents met bush walking (how good), and mum was a speech pathologist and dad in the navy followed by working in Oil & Gas. We connect over our shared love for quality storytelling and advertising, especially in today’s closed loop world with Netflix and Spotify where ads aren’t like live TV. We spend the majority of this episode on Michael’s career journey from starting in advertising to joining Google first in Sydney and then New York when they were slightly smaller than they are today, how this led to his MBA study at Harvard and then the big moment!How did he join Linktree when they were a dozen people and had not raised much external funding. Today they’re valued at over a billion dollars — what exactly is operations in a startup and why the perceptions can be wrong, using the vision to values framework to set team and company vision, how to strategise pricing for a global product launch, sequencing ambition and impact in a fast growing company, world class investor relations and successful off boarding and on boarding.And that’s not all — Michael has decided to go back to early stage company building, joining Flo (that’s Fl0) — the platform that empowers back end engineers to deploy code, and how he’s using his link tree experiences to see around corners, especially being the first non engineer hire.It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***02:48 - Where were you born and live now? 03:20 - What was your first job and now?05:04- High Flyer in Michael’s life06:18 - Malaysia and the Blue Mountains07:46 - Introverted and shy 09:02 - Advertising love from day dot13:15 - Mad Men15:02 - Young Wisdom 17:08 - Rationale to work at Google19:30 - Corporate vs startups 22:39 - Google in America vs Australia 26:35 - Harvard MBA 28:30 - Joining Linktree (when it was < 20 employees)34:10 - Setting up for success in early startup38:06 - Unpacking what “operations” means in a startup 42:05 - The vision to values framework44:32 - Setting pricing for a viral global company 46:57 - Executive Coach49:33 - Sequencing ambition and impact 53:06 - World class investor relations56:00 - How can investors be most helpful 58:10 - Team management being a sharp curve59:33 - Joining the startup, FL001:00:31 - Successful off boarding and onboarding 01:02:25 - Most formative experience in his career01:03:39 - Final sprint***

Dan Fitzgerald is the Managing Partner at ReGen Ventures, has been investing in climate-tech for over 10 years across early-stage, growth and real assets. Dan was previously the co-founder of a quant hedge fund and an Options Trader at UBS and Macquarie Bank.In this episode #126 w Dan Fitzgerald, learn about:His early influences with his sunrise in Brisbane, Australia when his mum was just 18! (My mum was 21 when I was born, kudos to all the incredible mums out there, you’re special). I love Dan’s candour including his dreams to play professional sport, Rugby union in particular — how that didn’t eventuate and led his foray into the world of financial markets and living a life of being present.Dan calls his 6+ years in the investment banking and hedge fund industry as a rolling epiphany as he sought to find his eventual home of fulfillment being impact investing and working with exceptional founders creating companies as the force for good and this led to the creation of ReGen Ventures, where Dan is the Managing Partner.Get excited to immerse yourself in how Dan and his team are re-imagining the world from the atom up, what it means to invest in startups from the UK, to Austria to the US to Australia and what are the raw ingredients of category defining companies in ClimateTech.This episode is dedicated to the beautiful memory of Dan’s daughter Frankie who inspires us all to live to our fullest each day, in love and wonder.It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***02:20  - Where were you born and live now?02:42 - What was your first job and now?03:52 - High Flyer in Dan’s life05:03 - 18 year old mum07:25 - Period of change08:37 - Everyday is a gift09:40 - Heroes10:55 - Professional athlete dreams14:27 - 4am wake ups capturing moments of quiet16:23 - First date with business and finance19:20 - Rolling epiphany 6 years in financial markets21:50 - How to review and change career identity24:28 - Founding a Quant fund26:50 - Downside limited, upside unknown and Risk Management28:10 - Creation of ReGen Ventures32:00 - “Inconvenient truth” movie inspiring change34:00 - Magic moments to building a VC fund37:47 - Breath vs depth of relationships40:20 - Thesis beyond sustainability to “Regenerative” globally45:28 - Learnings from investing in UK, Austria, USA and more48:43 - DNA of a category defining company in ClimateTech51:00 - Assessing spikes in category creating founders54:05 - Rainbow in the clouds, daughter Frankie’s memory57:50 - Final sprint***

Eytan Lenko is CEO at Boundless, on a mission to make Australia a renewable energy superpower by 2030, backed by Atlassian Co-founder, Mike Cannon Brookes. He previously was a software engineer and co-founded 2 companies including Outware Mobile.In this episode #125 w Eytan Lenko, learn about:Think of this in two parts, with the first half being a deep dive into Eytan’s life influences and career decisions and the second half, a deep dive into his love affair with climate solutions and technology, how it started first at Beyond Zero Emissions and more recently as CEO at Boundless, the non for profit to make Australia a renewable energy superpower by 2030, backed by Atlassian Co-founder, Mike Cannon Brookes.Learn about Eytan’s sunrise in Melbourne, his jewish heritage and the influences of his father, a chemical engineer turned entrepreneur and mum, a nurse turned a cosmetics sales extraordinaire, and his 3 sisters.We cover his career track especially how he went from software engineer to CEO, and founding 2 companies along the way and influences living in Japan, Darwin and the UK.I loved every minute of this, Eytan is candid, passionate, introspective and really lives up to our ethos of open direct access, and it’s a masterclass in the climate solutions today, how Eytan and his team are using the epic way of working and creating 100,000 jobs in the space today.It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***02:16  - Where were you born and live now?02:33 - What was your first job and now?03:45 - High Flyer in Eytan’s life04:42 - WW2 and holocaust survivors05:47 - 3 younger sisters06:21 - Chemical engineer, programming and nursing11:03 - kibbutz and Israel13:01 - Friday night dinners with family16:55 - Academic learning vs learning through doing22:09 - Learning people leadership alongside technical skills26:23 - Engineering to CEO28:07 - How to go into a new company environment and drive alignment31:00 - Founder transferable skills33:48 - Learnings from Japan, Darwin and UK37:33 - First date with climate41:47 - Working in “epics”47:44 - Electric Vehicles and Transportation49:50 - Solving with government54:38 - Cost of capital to unlock innovation57:58 - 100,000 new jobs01:01:40 - Rapid fire***

Featuring two of the co-founders, Jess Richmond & Lindsay Ellis, building from Tasmania for the world! Welcome to installment #23 of the Investment Memo series and episode #124 on the show. Submit this EOI for your company to be considered in future episodes of this special series!  This exciting startup Sumday, is empowering accountants to re-define how the world measures and reports on environmental impact.In this conversation with 2 of the  co-founders, Jess Richmond and Lindsay Ellis, based in Tasmania, Australia — learn about how their regional upbringing and global work experiences from Dubai to Norway influences their outlook on life today. This one’s candid, I asked them about how they first met which is quite the story, the magic moments that led to leaving their full time jobs and going all in on building Sumday, crucible moments including their first customer, their first product and engineer hires and transitioning from an accounting firm to a software platform.Be sure to have your notepad ready to understand what exactly is carbon accounting, what are scope 1,2 and 3 emissions. And in what can seem a crowded space, how have Sunday built their point of difference for investors, customers and employees to join them on this mission, as they bring the future today, building in Tasmania, Australia for the world.It’s time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy! (Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website or email Vidit directly at vidit@curiositycenter.xyz to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***02:29 - Jess’s influences from Tasmania, Dubai, Melbourne03:55 - Linday’s influences from Perth, Norway, NZ05:04 - Most impactful career experiences to date10:37 - How Lindsay and Jess met13:35 - Playing in the arena to reduce emissions16:30 - Realising importance of analysis + storytelling17:37  - Decision to go all-in21:30 - Crucible moment this could be a large business24:00 - Funny stories of first senior hires 25:35 - Generating significant traction 28:30 - Transition from accounting firm to software platform31:33 - Defining carbon accounting and scope 1,2 and 335:59 - Sunday’s points of difference42:32 - Building from Tasmania for the world44:30 - Upcoming job openings and skill sets in team 

In this episode #123 w David Shein, learn about:David’s memories of growing up in South Africa during a divided time for the country, the influences of his father, a businessman and mother, a piano teacher — and his 2 older brothers.I asked Dave about his move to Australia in the 80’s or “gods country” as he calls it. You may be aware that he founded ComTech, Australia’s first unicorn but what you may not know is the story behind this, especially having a young family and being new in Australia.Dave was candid about his biggest regret, how’s he made career decisions, the meaning of success, how he’s managed to build a knack of understanding people quickly and maintaining high quality relationships with leaders in business, sport, politics and more.And I couldn’t release this episode without asking Dave some of the hard questions about his fund, OIF, best in class investor relationships, and his unfiltered advice to founders in this uncertain climate.It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy!(Timestamps below)***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website or email Vidit directly at vidit@curiositycenter.xyz to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! ***02:15 - Secrets to looking young02:52 -  Where were you born and live now?03:18 - What was your first job and now?05:00 - High Flyer in David’s life07:25 - Growing up in South Africa during a divided country11:52 - Chartered Accounting family13:05 - 3 brothers15:42 - Moving to Australia in 198119:34 - Founding ComTech with a young family22:01 - Sitting on a gold mine25:00 - Financial success27:22 - Career decision making hierarchy34:55 - VC as a career path today38:00 - Judging people in 5 minutes41:00 - Cultivating high quality relationships44:37 - OIF and US connection48:26 - Best in class investor relationships52:02 - Hall of fame54:10 - Advice to founders in today’s market57:40 - Balance between growth and profitability01:00:22 - Success, respect, reputation01:02:28 - Rapid fire

In this episode #122 w Sheel Mohnot, learn about:02:15  - Where were you born and live now?02:30 - What was your first job and now?03:20  - High Flyer in Sheel’s life04:12 - Indian family influences05:19 - High school impressions06:09 - Connecting with Indian / American identity06:51 - Grandfather’s inspiration07:44 - Multi dimensional career interests09:00 - A year living in India on a $1 a day10:18 - Internalising personal values and happiness11:10 - Most painful learning12:26 - Meeting his wife thanks to a dating show12:48 - Taco Bell metaverse wedding13:44 - Hanging out with AirBnB’s Brian Cheesky16:18 - Business opportunity in podcasts17:13 - Finance, Consulting, Healthcare18:02 - Mental models for learning18:57 - Crowdfunding as part of a VC round19:50 - State of FinTech today21:07 - Founding team vs product at seed stage21:50 - Transition from angel investor to running a fund22:45 - Questions to ask in first meeting with founder23:51 - Downside of saying no to founders24:42 - Hallmarks of a great enduring Venture firm26:44 - Managing both sides: the LP’s and Founders28:44 - 5 best hall of fame investors29:54 - Best underrated investors30:35 - most unexpected successful founders31:35 - Unpacking Flexport’s business model33:09 - Indian CEO’s34:58 - Building rapport cross cultures37:20 - FinTech in Africa38:01 - Opportunity in Australia39:12 - 3 tips to become a VC today40:12 - Progression within a VC41:51 - Traits of a great investment memo42:50 - Areas founders should be more aware of44:39 - Growth vs burn rates45:15 - Final sprintIt’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy!***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website or email Vidit directly at vidit@curiositycenter.xyz to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show! 

Global tech investor Squarepeg announces investment in Chronicle. Hear from James Tynan and Mayuresh Patole! In this special episode #121, learn about:▪️ 02:09 - James’ memories of first meeting with Mayuresh @ Chronicle▪️04:04 - Mayuresh’ memories of early interactions with Squarepeg ▪️06:15 - Where was Mayuresh born and lives now?▪️07:20 - Most profound experience in childhood▪️10:38 - Ultra HD vision only at age 12▪️13:07 - Parents influences and high performance▪️16:00 - Living up to family expectations▪️17:56 - The global significance of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)▪️20:13 - 800 students from a million applicants + CEO alumni▪️21:40 - First spark of interest in the world of design ▪️24:22 - Helping 300 startup founders with “how to make kickass presentations▪️27:35 - The rare package of design and analytical thinking ▪️32:22 - It’s too easy right now to make bad presentations▪️33:52 - Constraint and power together in presentations ▪️35:58 - How Chronicle is using constraint for a great storytelling experience▪️38:48 - Enabling users to design with blocks, not templates▪️45:42 - Visual metaphor designed for the overhead projector▪️49:02 - The new storytelling world using Chronicle▪️50:48 - Use cases of generative AI in presentations▪️54:20 - Final sprint rapid fire It’s now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy!***Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or TwitterContact us via our website or email Vidit directly at vidit@curiositycenter.xyz to discuss sponsorship opportunities, recommend future guests or share feedback, we love hearing how to improve! Thank you for rating / reviewing this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, it helps others find us and convince guests to come on the show!