March 12, 2025 • 62 mins
NZ's economic woes are complicated and many-headed, but business guru Andy Hamilton has exactly 26 ideas for ways it could be improved.
Some of them, like becoming part of Australia, are a bit dumb – but there are others that could have a lot of potential.
Hamilton also looks back at what it was like going through the We Are Indigo and Manaaki v Callaghan Innovation stoush, and talks through what he took away from the experience.
Plus, it's Ben's last episode so he talks through the changes at NZME that have led to him seeking his fortune elsewhere, and Peter outlines what to expect from next week.
Thanks so much to all the listeners and supporters over the last 89 episodes.
The Business of Tech is sponsored by 2degrees for Business.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Amid the economic gloom, a lot of people in the
tech sector are floating some interesting ideas for how we
can get out of it and actually put some horse
power behind the government's growth agenda.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Tech itself is not the answer. It's seldom is, but
smart people in the tech space who understand disruption, how
to scale up quickly and fail fast, are kicking about
some interesting ideas that are worth considering.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This week on the Business of Tech, powered by two Degrees,
business seasoned startup mentor and investor Andy Hamilton with twenty
six ideas to contribute to New Zealand's economic and social development.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Where all the kids coming out of finance degrees in
Otago and cannot we want to go for their first job.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's not Willlington, it's not Awkoin.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
It's sick, bright lights, big pay, and they're not coming
back to New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm been more for the last time and I'm Peter Griffin.
And Andy Hamilton also reflects on the shit storm he found
himself in a couple of years back, when he and
his business partners were accused of bad behavior towards some
of their suppliers and ended up in an acrimonious fight
with Callahan Innovation. That saga ended with a damning auditor
(01:16):
General's report that found the government agency really screwed things up.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It was a dark episode for the startup community, and
this is the first time really that Andy has discussed it,
so it's good to get his reflections on that episode
and what he learned from the whole sorry thing, which
really had no winners.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
We'll get into that soon, but first, Ben that bombshell
you just dropped about this being your last episode. We
really need to get to the heart of that. Obviously,
there's been a lot going on. It ensured me. I
was at going away drinks for a lot of people
last week who had been made redundant, So a lot
of really top journalists, including yourself, heading out into the world.
What has gone down sort of since we came back
(01:57):
from the summer break and insied me a publisher of
the New Zealand Herald business Deer Scan our own podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, I mean it's not been overly secretive, I guess.
I came back early in January and had my first
week back, and then in my second week back was
when the initial announcement was made to the newsroom at
large or to end zmy at large, I should say
about the restructuring that was coming through.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I guess, speaking frankly, I felt like because I had
a very a bit of an outlier role in the
business desk outlet, where the other my colleagues were generally
journalists and senior journalists, and then I had this outlier
(02:50):
role of tech editor, and so I thought, Okay, here
we go. This is probably going to be impacting me
in some way, strap in against and so it has
been about two months now of trying to work through
that process, and sure enough, Yeah, my role was disestablished
(03:10):
and people were asked whether they wanted voluntary redundancy, and
there's been you know, to talk about some of the
major major senior journalists who have taken that redundancy. So
I had to kind of look at whether I wanted
to reapply for certain jobs within the company. I didn't
feel in the end that any of those roles were
(03:30):
appropriate for me, and so I decided that I would
take redundancy. So that makes this my final episode of
the Business of Tech. Yeah, so there's been a lot
of talk a pivot to video, and then of course
there's been the recent change of shareholder with New Zealand
(03:52):
resident or citizen but originally from Canada, James Grennan. He
has taken ten percent shareholding, and I think the best
coverage for this has been Duncan Grieves The Fold and
some of his writing elsewhere. So if you're interested in
the whole story, I would recommend checking that out. But
(04:13):
James Grennan's perspective is I think quite clear from some
of his other outlets like The Centrist that he has
been involved in. And so there is now talk of
like what's going to happen within nzm ME and whether
there's going to be you know, changes editorial.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, slant will be put on the news based on
the ownership of the organization, which frankly we've seen with
the likes of the Washington Posts, most famously Jeff Bezos
is starting to assert his authority. So I guess if
you're the owner, you have legal power, you have the
right to do that.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and you know, maybe not in overt ways. And
I think a lot of the hard news will remain saying,
you know, this happens, and somebody gets out there and
reports it factually, but it's it comes to those opiniony editorially.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Side of the paper.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
That's where it could.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Start to shift.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Not saying it will. Nobody really knows, but that's just
some chatter around the place.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, So I guess the background to all of this
is just carnage in the media sector. We've seen particularly
last year with the demise of news Hub TV and
ZAD taking a massive haircut, stuff restructuring. So this is
the industry we find ourselves in. This is a move
(05:33):
by Indented ME to cut cost out of the business.
I think they want to save four million dollars a
year by reducing the editorial head count thirty roles I
think in total, a lot of them in production, but
a lot of them senior journalists, you know, the likes
of yourself Jamie Morton is science reporter going as well.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
You know a number of people big.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Names, Clear Trevette, political editor in the Herald News. So
obviously the news business is about breaking stories, expert analysis,
so we're going to lose a bit of that. So
I guess we're at a real sort of fork in
the road for the media business about what really counts
(06:18):
when it comes to what audiences are willing to pay for.
Do they just want breaking, live news, know what's going
on in the world. Do they want that sort of
in depth coverage and will they subscribe based on the
personalities who are providing that. I think that's really the
big question mark now for the likes of ensured Me
and others that are restructuring and changing their strategy slightly.
(06:41):
What is actually going to be sustainable as a news
business in a small market like New Zealand in the
coming years.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, and you know, like you said, personality is going
to be a big part of it, and z A
me the biggest personalities or the most I guess the
most popular personalities come out of the news talk, zed B,
Space or z B generally, and so there's probably going
to be I think there's going to be a reasonable
(07:08):
integration between z B and whatever Enzenemy decides to do
going forward. That'd be interesting to see how that plays
out as well. But I think it does just really speak,
like you said, to where we are with news media.
The Anzenemy needed to do something drastic in order to
(07:29):
keep its shareholders happy, and if you believe some of
them reporting that's coming out around Grennan's discussion with shareholders,
they aren't happy you know, for whatever reason, how profitable
should a newspaper be, you know, like does it need
to be to make its shareholders happy? What is a
shareholder's kind of expectation when they have when they have
(07:53):
holdings of a news a legacy news media outlet, Like
what are they actually what is important to them? And
I think we're starting to learn a little bit about
that in the modern world. So yeah, it's a bittersweet
obviously to leave business desk and to leave NZ. At me,
it's hard because it means that I'm leaving a nine
(08:14):
to five job that you know, has been has done
me very well, and.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
But I will point to this quote in aren Z's
Media Watch, which is where they went to a farewell
with some of the Enzendemy staffers and I was at that, Yeah,
that's right. I almost won't but I couldn't make it.
As said, one journalist, leaned on the bar and delivered
a bleaque equip this was meant to be awake for
(08:41):
the people leaving, but it's turned into a wake for
the people who are staying, the said, which was quite funny,
and you know, aly a lovely quote to put into
a media watch story. I'm not sure how entirely accurate
it is, but there is a sense of that to
me where I'm I don't think I fit into the
new enzodemy structure, and so yeah, I'm off to try
(09:02):
and see what else I can do. Whether that ends
up being a new full time role elsewhere, that's a possibility.
The other possibility is that I end up working for myself,
whether that's freelancing, contracting, whatever it is that I end
up doing. So I think the best way to keep
up with whatever I'm going to do is to you know,
(09:23):
follow me on LinkedIn, as we say at the end
of each episode, and you can also find me on
Blue Sky. Just a public service announcement that if you
do want to know where I am, that's where I am.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah. Nevertheless, you are, as they say on LinkedIn, open
to work.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, and you're going to go far. You're going to
do fine being you've got such a great network. And
as we keep talking about on the podcast in our
writing in Business Desk, it's the forces of disruption tech
that's what we love, that has completely disrupted the industry
that we trained to go into. But there are opportunities
(10:02):
there as well. Like at that going away there was
actually some excitement in the room. You saw these people
who some of them had been at the Herald for
twenty years going you know, I've got an open slate
really as to what i can do with the rest
of my working life. And there was talk of people
setting up substacks and you know, trying to like Bernardiccki's
(10:23):
done with the Khaka, that sort of thing, and try
and build their own audience. And it goes back to
that sort of personality driven news. People trust certain personalities
and we saw that with the the Joe Rogans and
that just building this massive listenership. So there is actual
opportunity out there. What is the media going to look
like in five to ten years. It's hard to know.
(10:45):
What we do know is that the business model is
broken and big tech has a part to play in that.
But we've got to play with the hands we've been dealt.
So I think there will be innovation in the New
Zealand media as a result of all these really and
trusted people going out potentially on their own.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well fingers cross, that can be part of that.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
The problem I think is is such a fragmented landscape.
If you do set up a substack, I mean dozens
of them. Now, how many substacks are people willing to
pay for? So this fragmentation is a real problem we
need to deal with. I want to support a lot
of my colleagues who are out there, but there needs
(11:25):
to be a more seamless way to do that and
an affordable way to at least support a pool of
people who are out on their own.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, So yeah, I guess that's kind of
where I am, where we are, And why don't you
talk a little bit about what's going to happen from
next week?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, So the podcast will continue and it'll be a
sole hosted podcast, So I'll be doing it myself, Ben,
which is going to be a struggle after eighty nine
episodes of being there with you through every episode and
you producing every episode, it's going to be quite differ
for me. But we've got great support from our sponsored
(12:03):
two degrees for the next year, so we will carry on.
We'll soldier on alone and hopefully have you back from
time to time on the podcast as you do forge
your own way out there. I know you've got irons
in the fire with various media outlets as well as
a sort of a freelancer, so we'll be seeing lots
of you around.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, hopefully I'd love to come back and check in
with how things are going. And obviously I'll be subscribing
as well, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Just before we move on to the next BOK, thank
you so much to all the listeners out there who
have stuck with us throughout this time and supported the
business attack, and thanks to you Peter for being a
wonderful co host as well.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
It's been a fantastic right Ben, and I just love
your insight, which is slightly different to mine on many
occasions and many issues and topics related to tech, but
just really love your thoughtful and very human centered sort
of view Off all of this, I get a bit
drawn up in the showiness of tech and what it
(13:02):
can do for society and the world, but quite often
you pull me back and say, well, hang on, have
you considered all of the implications of this, which is
so valuable. So I hope you keep that up because
we need those voices. Paris Marx is doing that sort
of thing at the moment to great effects, looking at
the rise of data centers and all these things, asking
(13:24):
those questions about, hey, is this actually a force for good?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I'm human centric. Maybe
that's my new branding.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Human centric tech.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
So, as we've discussed, media is one area where we're
facing structural issues to the detriment off the country. We think.
Others are our taxation system, how we educate our kids,
our healthcare system, even our stock exchange, the science system
that's supposed to underpin the innovation we do as a nation.
(13:56):
Everything is in flux, slightly broken, to be honest, no
longer fit for purpose. We know we need to get
our mojo back. We need some decent ideas about how
to get there.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And tech people are quick to offer them. Look at
Elon Musk's grand plan to make the US government more efficient.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, well that hasn't gone so well. Unless you think
just arbitrarily eliminating entire government agencies that do important work
is the way forward. I do not, But I've had
some really good conversations with people in and around our
own tech community who do care about New Zealand and
have ideas about how to shift the needle faster on
growth and tackle some of the big problems we face.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Andy Hamilton has spent the start of the year publishing
a series on LinkedIn looking at some of those problems
and opportunities.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
He's been around the startup scene for over twenty five years,
a big chunk of that time running the Ice House
in Auckland. He left there in January twenty twenty, just
before COVID arrived. Then he pivoted very quickly with the
entre Pat McFee and former boxer Monty Betham to create
the venture We Are Monarchy as the first lockdown hit.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
It was like a support network for small businesses trying
to navigate the bewildering new environment, and it did some
great work in those intense months, but also became involved
in a pretty rancorous dispute which Andy Hamilton was at
the heart of. It has come through that, but clearly
some scars are there, and some self reflection and some
perspective on where he's going and where the country is going.
(15:33):
So let's hear those in Peter's interview with Andy Hamilton.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Andy Hamilton, Welcome to the Business of Tech. A lot
of our listeners will know you personally, at least know
your name. A real stalwart of the innovation ecosystem for
the last twenty five years. The founder of ice House,
which has been integral to assisting small businesses and startups
over the last twenty years. Co founder of ice House Ventures,
(16:09):
an investor in your own right, the likes of Mint Innovation.
Tell some of the other companies that you're invested in.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, I mean, I think you know a couple of
things like I was the CEO found in CEO of
ice House, the first person that got hired and got
paid and ice House Ventures. I had a part to play,
but Robbie and the team rarely the ones that drove
that to the success.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I just enabled it. And sort of investments interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Power by proxy, credible company, blue Frog Breakfast would be
one of my most favorite ones. They Musley company, which
you know people would go, why would you invest in that? Well,
I've learned so much and I get to eat my
investment every morning. Other companies you know Midtimes, small investor
by ice House in quite a few, actually, Chatterist, which
(16:55):
is a new one right, which is doing some pretty
cool stuff around comments. That these founders have been able
to do is bring moderation, insight, engagement to that stream
because it is a hidden vault of opportunity for brands
if you can work with the crowd around your brands.
(17:17):
And you know, like a lot of other companies, I've
invested in small you know, I'm not a big check writer.
I'm a small check writer. I feel it gives me
the opportunity to go on the journey and to help
a little bit more with those companies. And I think
if you're not the founder, having the privilege to be
able to be on people's journeys is a pretty amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, and you've been on that journey with lots of companies.
A very different scene twenty years ago, the access to capital.
We didn't have all of these founders that were cashed
up from exits that really started with the trade means
and then Rod Drury, I guess, but what was it
like twenty years ago the scene compared to now.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
There wasn't an ecosystem to speak of. There were zemplars
offshore that we went and you know, we went to
Tech Coast Angels in San Diego, and you know, we
looked around in Singapore, China, in the UK, and I
think we just twenty years ago it was like, hey,
incubators are a thing. Hey, accelerators are a thing. Hey,
seed funds are things. And we just tried all those
(18:17):
things and I think, you know, it was disorganized but
with good purpose to try and make a difference to
help companies. And I think we just the secret was
doing lots of things and learning and failing in some
cases succeeding maybe doing more than we might or should have.
(18:40):
But I think the result is that we built compound
contribution for founders and businesses that has had a big
impact over time. In the case of ice House Adventures,
they've fundamentally created a moat and a marketplace where they
have ridibly strong brand and reputation with founders and with investors.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Absolutely, So that was a big part of your life,
you know, building that up, going on that journey. And
then I guess just before COVID, really you stepped down,
went out obviously still investing, consulting, and that we hit COVID,
and you do a really interesting thing. You set up
this platform called Manarchi, which I remember in the depths
(19:28):
of lockdown watching the comments on that platform. You know,
bakers or small businesses trying to reinvent themselves with e
commerce overnight, really powerful thing. What was the impetus? You
and Pat McFee, how did you come up with that?
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Look, it was three of us.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
It was Pat, Monty Betham, and myself right and right
on lockdown. We sat there and Monty said, after we'd
spent half a day helping with Indigo, their design agency,
sought themselves out from a cost base, renegotiate the rent
with the landlord, get the support to be able to survive.
(20:09):
Monty made the statement, he said, how we've just killed
it in half a day. How are other people coping
by doing this? Surely we could do something for them?
And that you know, it was Monty's leadership that led
us down the path of let's actually create something online
that enables people to ask for help and engage with
(20:29):
the community. Pretty simple idea that blew up.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
And you know you're in there very actively offering advice,
helping people out. Pat Other people were as well, So
it really started something.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Was it envisaged.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
As a temporary support network during really tough times or
did you envisage it as something like, well, this is
actually showing us that small businesses need the support on
an ongoing basis.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I mean I think a couple of things.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
The first thing that we the objective behind it was
to serve, so that there wasn't more behind that.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I think both.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Pat with his experience at Zero and my experience at
ice House, had always had in the back of our mind,
could you build, you know, a service model at scale
for small business because there's so many small businesses and
economies like New Zealand, so we had in our mind,
wouldn't it be cool if you could do something at scale?
But when we started, it was just let's just get
(21:30):
up and help some people and see where we go.
And then you know, we got momentum and we rolled
and we pick up some contracts and you know, the
network started to build and we're like, wow, this is
pretty cool.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
And then unfortunately it came undone.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And I want to talk about this because this was
a pretty traumatic period of time for you that we
don't need to get into all the you know, there's
a lot of history to this story, but essentially, through monarchy,
you worked with other partners, you were accused, you and
pattern your colleagues of bad conduct towards treating them poorly.
(22:05):
That then steamrolled into a process at Callahan Innovation because
Monarchy was going for some contracts, which is as you'd
expect if you want to build this thing, and Callahan
is offering money, you put your hand up for that.
There was due diligence done on you, guys, and as
we found out later, the Order to General found that
(22:26):
that was a very bad process. Callahan made some major
missteps there, treated you poorly. Talk us through how you
felt through all of that. Here's someone at the heart
of the innovation ecosystem, has twenty five years been working
with these people very closely, and then you find yourself
in the middle of this really acrimonious stoush with Callahan
(22:48):
Innovation and others in the startup community.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I don't like to think too much about it because
I think it was it was a pretty stressful time.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I mean, it felt like war, and it felt like
you're fighting.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Against you know, the opposition that you couldn't find or
you couldn't see, and that's a part of the social pylon.
I think no normal human being could reflect on that
time and say they didn't regret it, because the evidence
is all there that it just, you know, what started
as something with good intentions ended up being a complete
(23:24):
mess for multiple parties, and so you know, I regret
that it happened. It was not enjoyable. And you know,
did we win at the end?
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Do you know what? Who cares?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Because it's a moment in time. We got some things wrong.
We grew too fast, we were too loose, and we
had good intentions and we got let down by system.
But we let ourselves down in that. And you know
that doesn't mean they were wrong and we were right.
It just means it got screwed up. And it's really unfortunate.
(24:01):
But you learn a lot, you know, as a you know,
when you're a CEO of an organization, you have all
this infrastructure around you. Then when you go soul, there's
no one to actually support you. But what was incredible
for us is people like Mike Heron, people like Andrew
Simmons came and supported us. And that was a real
(24:22):
gift to us that Pat, Me and Monty had an
amazing family behind us, but we had these people who
gave so much to us in our fight, Peter and
Deborah Hall as well. And so I think that's something
to look back on and reflect on and just go
that's a life learning, but it's time to move on.
I still get the monarchy searchers on LinkedIn.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
I get on the.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Weekly update saying four people looked at monarchy, which is
pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Well, it is pretty cool because that is definitely part
of your legacy. At that crucial time for a couple
of years where people needed help, that was a go
to resource. So I think there's still a lot of
good will ye around that. Ultimately, you got an apology
from Callahan Innovation. I don't think you pursued legal action
in the end.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
We could have and we would have won if we
sued them, But do you know what, what's the point?
You get the apology, take that, move on.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And we're in a situation now where that agency is
being disestablished. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
I mean, I feel that Callahan has always had a
hard road to hoe. I think it's had pretty poor
leadership over the time, but it will set up incorrectly
in my view, and I'm sad for the people you
know that go that are losing their jobs and moving
away from their own purpose driven jobs to contribute to
(25:43):
New Zealand. And so I feel no, you know, I'm
not sitting here smuggly going that's great that they're out.
It's unfortunate it's the way it is, but it's instructive
of the need in New Zealand for us to be
really focused on doing something that makes it contribution to
that ecosystem and our productivity and improving because we're in
(26:07):
the ship and we need to do things better.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
We are in the shit.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And this is really why I wanted to have you
on because over the last six weeks or so, for
a month, you've been every day on LinkedIn, publishing some
sort of big ideas about how we can get out
of the shit, and very much focused on your area
of expertise, which is how do we do more around
(26:31):
our startups, around our innovative companies, because we know that
that's where the high value salaries are, that's where the
wealth has created, the knowledge economy. Stuff is the future
of New Zealand to some degree, to a greater degree
than it has been in the past. How do we
do more of it? And as you say, we've thrown
lots of things at the wall over the last twenty
(26:51):
five years.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Some of it's been very.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Productive, there's been some wastage and we've had rowan since
in a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, outlining
in stark terms he thinks most of it's been wasted
dollars two and a half billion dollars via Callahan innovation.
He tottered up, which he's saying quite rightly, how do
you measure the outcome of that? We're out a fork
(27:13):
in the road really now with this government has a
growth agenda. We're sort of coming out of a recession,
so there is an opportunity to do something.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
Or not. I mean one of the things you float
here in your ideas.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Nothing is do nothing, which I think sort of Rowan
is sympathetic to, and so am I really is, if
you've got no really strong ideas, if you don't measure
things and draw learnings from those, why not just we're
known as a low corruption, reasonable taxation country. We've got
(27:48):
a very respectable business environment. Is that enough to allow
this to flourish? You really need to intervene.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
I mean it is an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
I mean I think we should start with I Actually
you agree with the whole idea that if you did nothing,
what comes out more rocket labs, more share ease, more
lands attacks, more mints. I think that's a like if
we you know, if we could leave it and just
do nothing to achieve the outcomes that we need, then
I think that's a viable strategy. I suppose the question
(28:20):
is that I've posed. I don't think that's enough for
us to win. And I think we've got a serious
misalignment issue in New Zealand around our talent into our
productive enterprises, you know, and the quality of the talent
in our big firms. You would never go and throw
into a Halter or a sharez ease, They're just not
(28:41):
good enough managers and leaders in our large banks, telco's
electricity companies, and so I actually think we've got a
talent issue, and linked to that, solving that issue maybe
pools of capital. But I don't believe doing nothing alone
will be an enough to get us there.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
But I could be wrong.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, And a lot of your ideas are very much
about we actively need to do something here around and
you're an advocate for sort of funding mechanisms, government funding
mechanisms to help our ecosystem grow. But I think one
of your big ones here at number five over index
(29:22):
on our people development attraction extension, let's scale up internships,
job work programs. So you've got, You've got this talent
base of management in our big companies, which is mixed quality.
But in terms of you know, the future Peter Becks
and the people behind Cherseys and those successful startups, how
(29:43):
do we get more of them better prepared, sooner to
go on that journey.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I mean, I think the exciting thing is I look
at outset Ventures, which I said in you know often,
you know, weekly Daily, and the interns that go into
those companies, at ternary lands, at tech others, they're getting
a great opportunity because they're getting they're getting exposed to
a Sean Simpson, those interns. So I think there is
an absolute secret source around. You know, if you look
(30:10):
at Craig from Holter, he was inspired by Peter Beck
working as an intern at Rocket Lab. So I think
doing more of those things. You know, why would you
would you rather go and work for a startup as
an intern or go and work at the ben Z
Give me a break, right?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
That to me?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
If you're an engineer or a marketer, getting that opportunity
to go into a deep tech startup, and it's just you know,
so I think we need more of that. I also
think we need to supplement the growth of our people
by attracting product builders from offshore to come and do
their startups here. Because when you're around great people, what
(30:47):
happens You actually start to do amazing things because you're inspired,
you're challenged by them, and you know, it's a different
competition game because all of a sudden, you're going, Wow,
this is possible. It's not just a competence thing, but
it's also a belief thing.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
ID twenty four issue an AI builder visa for a
New Zealand residency, so focusing specifically on AI expertise getting
that here.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
I mean, I think a couple of things in there.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I think, you know, maybe this is the randomness of
my ideas all that I forgot earlier on I talked
about a product builders visa, but then when I started
doing the AI strategy work stuff, I was like, we
should have an AI visa as well, specifically because I
just think we do need to look at future areas
and go, hey, if you've got AI competence and you'd
(31:35):
like to come and build, you know, in New Zealand,
we welcome you to come in. You know a but
like the Digital Nomad's visa, which that nomad's visa is
what everyone else is doing, and so we're just doing it.
So good, let's get it done that they can come,
but let's actually create a visa off that. That's for
AI founders who want to come and build their AI
(31:56):
business here. And hey, even crazy idea. If you've got
that AI visa, would we put some Aspire money alongside
or some co investment to enable you to get your
preceed right?
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Well, you know, so that's you're marriaging no sort of
two things talent and capital there, which is what we need.
And I don't know to what extent the government is
actually proactively going out and looking for the right sorts
of people. I gets Entita and out of flagging this
in the US and Europe and Asia as well, But hey,
(32:31):
should we go out and look for the top one
hundred AI experts in the world.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I think that's an interesting challenging question because whenever government
does something proactively top of funnel you get, you can
get some unintended outcomes.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Like Peter Thiel apparently.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, so I think I don't know about that. I think,
you know, Entit tries to do a pretty good job
around promoting new Zealand and look, you know, but you
get more impact on your pipeline of investor migrants by
what has happening with the current administration in the US
from those people who don't like it, who want to
come here, than you would do if New Zealand tried
(33:13):
to be proactive. And so I think the answer to
that is we need to be really good when they
hit our websites, when they hit staff to show inquiry,
to make it really easy for people to assess is
this what they want to do, and then you know,
and then the processing. So I think I think they're
doing a good job around the promoting, but I don't
(33:34):
know about the proactive targeting. I just don't know whether
that always works the best, you know. I think what
we know with immigration is set clear criteria to the
market and let the market, including the immigration advisors, run
the cutter on that with their clients and show interest.
And I think it's a really good thing that they
dropped the English language requirements. Do you I do, because
(33:58):
I just think it's racist that, you know, whoever decided
to increase the you know that was fundamentally trying to
restrict investor margarets from coming out of Asia.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
So talent and the associated investment incredibly important. We're doing
some things around that, maybe do more. Some big ideas
you have here, which is sort of in train idea
for we've got to bust the monopolies. The impact on
New Zealand's productivity.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
It's massive, massive.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Banks, not Telco. Yeah, it is sort of two degrees
has got to love those people, grocery, hardware, electricity. We
have just got somehow somewhere. We went so wrong in
allowing aggregation of power in high market shares and I
(34:52):
think it's just impacting on New Zealand. How to solve
it is pretty challenging. I don't see this government busting
the electricity industry by separating generators and retailers, which is
what they should do, because they're conflicted because they own
half of the gent tailors themselves, the government, and they're
not going to say they would not like to give
up on those dividends. And so I think it's a
(35:14):
massive issue that's monopolies. I would love to see tex
Edwards appointed a commissioner of the Commis Commission alongside the
other I think the Commists commissioner are doing a good job,
but we've just got some major major issues with aggregation
of market. Power, pet you just got to regulate it's
the same. And grocery they've got to drive structural separation.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
It's the same.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
And hardware like we are as you know, I spend
quite a bit of time in Australia and we're just
so much more expensive, so much more inefficient. It's killing
us what we're doing as a country. You know, we
don't need thirty two lines companies. We need to like Yeah,
I just think it's a very interesting thing that the
impact of having bad market structure to New Zealand's productivity first,
(36:02):
secondly around creating an environment for innovation where startups can
come out of that could go on to be global companies,
because you know, one of the things I'd like to see,
you know, if the market cap of zero is so
many billion, rocket lab is so many billion, how many
of those do we need for New Zealand to be transformed?
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Is it twenty? Is it fifty?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So when I actually think about success, I just think
fifty rocket labs.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
That's crazy. But wouldn't that be amazing if we could
achieve that.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Another idea which is topical at the moment a better
tax system unpack that for us.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I think there's an opportunity to do things better, and
we should do things better, but you know, we have
to be mindful that we're doing this in a competitive world.
So what does you know, For example, do we want banks, groceries,
electricity companies pain are low tax rate? No, they should
(37:03):
be paying higher tax rate. But do we want the
likes of the rocket labs and others that are internationally
having a more effective tax you know payment. I think
that's a really interesting and challenging question. And I know
my mates at the IDEA will say, you're crazy, you
can't have a two tax system. But I think fundamentally
(37:23):
we've got a misalignment issue and we've got to find
ways to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
And traditionally no one has wanted to touch capital gains
because it will affects most of the wealth and New
Zealand tied up in property. So you sell your house
or your second house, your rental house or something, capital
gains tax on that. But surely now this is the
point of differentiation for anyone other than the coalition government,
right if Labor puts that out there, We've seen the
(37:51):
pain that we're going through. We don't have enough money
to fund our infrastructure, our health sect there. It's only
going to get worse with an aging population, things like
climate change. Do you think New Zealand is starting to
wake up to the idea that this is a more
efficient way to fund the things that we need.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I think it is.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
But you know, part of the challenge that we have
is that our leaders are not courageous enough. You know,
one of the reflections I had on the Monarchy Callahan
experience was we had a government culture that was not
prepared to admit they were wrong. And they were given
multiple opportunities in our dispute with them to just go, yeah,
(38:29):
we've screwed up. Let's find a way to resolve right.
Why wouldn't they admit their wrong because they were too
worried what their board and their minister and their government
would say. There's a real endemic problem with admitting your
wrong and it's okay, as Rowan has said, it's good
(38:50):
to be wrong, and so we need that culture that goes,
this is not working, let's try something else. And I think,
you know, that's more leadership, more courage and you know,
I think more direction from our leaders to our officials
and agencies saying it's okay to screw up, you know,
(39:10):
learn from it. Yeah, And one thing I want to say,
I also think, you know, from a tax position. I've
always found it very odd that and founders can be
capital gains free, but an early employee in the first,
first year or second year of joining the startup, who
is not a founder or a co founder but as
close to it as possible, has to pay tax on their.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Esop or their outcomes.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Now I don't mind them paying taxes, but it's wrong
that a founder pays no tax and then someone who
joins his head of stack in the first.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Year has to pay the tax on that.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And the government is doing something in this space, but
it's token. Really, it's increasing the tax threshold a small amount.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
But it was a joke what they did. It was
a joke. I was just like, are you kidding mesulting?
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Really it is after all of that.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
It's just stupid.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
But a lot of people, unfortunately have good intentions in
Wellington around doing these things, but they have no real
understanding of how it actually works.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
Make no difference.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
It's like the fIF the foreign investor rules, which we
know are going to be changed. That they were well
intentioned idea around taxing your overseas income and deemed income,
but it had such a negative impact on foreigners coming
here and New Zealanders returning having to leave again because
of their tax bills.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
We could do way better.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
We're just going to be a lot smarter around the
ship we're doing because you know, it's a competitive world.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
You look at my children, you know, and their age groups.
You know, I don't know what the number is of
their year thirteen's that are going to university in Australia
compared to five, ten, fifteen years ago.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
It's way high.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Where all the kids coming out of finance degrees in
Otago and Canterbury want to go for their first job.
It's not Wellington, it's not Auckland. It's Sydney, bright lights,
big pay, great life, and they're not coming back to
New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
Eight twelve merge with Australia.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yeah, there you go, so kangaroo, let's go. No, that's
just me taking the person.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Maybe inspired by Donald Trump's fifty for his state being Canada,
but look, there is a good argument for tighter integration
with Australia.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
We've got close.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Relations, especially from a defense perspective.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Absolutely, And we talked in last week's episode with Reuben
Staff about this whether we should join AUCAST, for instance.
In his view as it's basically no brainer. It's either
that or iarmed independence with a decrepit military in New Zealand.
We've seen China in the South Pacific.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I find that one decision around August extremely difficult a
trade relationship with China, right, I find it extremely difficult
to I'm not competent enough about the consequences of each
In some regards, I just would prefer we stood on
the fence and didn't but I don't in this current environment.
(42:12):
It doesn't feel like we're able to do that. So
it's a scary decision.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
Yeah, I think you point out you want to get.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Onto the really controversial one around military service, don't you.
Speaker 5 (42:22):
I do.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
But first, just on the injet X, I think you
point out there that the market caps last year was
one hundred and eighty five billion, which isn't too bad
as a ratio of GDP compared to other countries. But
how about we get really aspirational, get a market cap
of the inst X that was one to one with
(42:44):
our GDP.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
So how would you do that? Yeah, that's like is
that two and a half times what it is now? Yeah,
you know, you have to become valuable as a partner
to the growing companies like the Rocket Labs and others.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
So how would you do that? You know? And I
don't think they've got any idea how to do that
at all.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
When you see that the ASX actively here, they've got
an office here that's sponsoring the tech awards. They are
basically cherry picking the best we have and saying, come
and do it on the AX.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Well, and there is a simple reason for that. Why
because your tech company gets into a bigger market, a
bigger tam, higher valuations, deeper capital pools. Why do you
think zero listed in the AX? And so I think,
why do you know Volpara lists on the AX? I
mean fundamentally, it's access to bigger pools of capital, which
(43:38):
then suggests me, I know there's a negative to NZX
merging with the ASX, but what you know, what are
the pros that come from that that would enable our
board to have a market cap that's a lot higher. Again,
this is not saying in my view that NZX is
poorly run. It's saying we need a better solution around
(43:59):
our public market to support the growth of New Zealand
and New Zealand companies.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
And it's sad that just the attractiveness of what's on
offer here is non area as great. It doesn't necessarily
have to be. I want to invest in New Zealand
tear companies.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Yep, it's an opportunity.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Okay, let's get onto compulsory military service idea number sixteen.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Explain that well, you know, you see it in Israel, maybe, Norway, Singapore,
a number of other countries.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
It was controversial when I put the idea out.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
I've had a you know, quite a few people say
it's the most stupidous idea. What were you thinking? Context
is know me thinking what are initiatives that would make
a material difference to our economic performance. I wasn't thinking
about cost. I was thinking about service back to New
Zealand for a year or two year period to contribute,
(44:56):
for example, to our infrastructure problem by having you know,
tens of thousands of kiwis contributing. I think I didn't
quite think through all of the costs and inputs, but
I can see the benefits that come to other economies
by having it. It wasn't about militarizing New Zealand. That
wasn't about that. But you know, it was like what
(45:18):
could make a difference to our GDP and also what
might make a difference to our culture over time. But
I didn't want us to be like Israel. We will
never be like Israel because we don't have the forces
that they do. We don't also have the volume of
scientists and engineers that they do. But you know, the
whole idea was what would make a difference to New
(45:38):
Zealand economically, And you know, I accept people's alternative views
that it would be stupid.
Speaker 5 (45:45):
Yeah, and you mentioned Israel.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I meant many tech people who their formative years were
in the IDF where they got to work on you know,
top level cryptography projects, all that sort of thing, which
led them to an to the startup world. That's a
different deal. They're very militarized nation, but just spending in
an early part of your life two or three years
(46:08):
doing this.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
And I think you or I could argue against or
for those things, and the reality is that they're just ideas.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
One of the things I would say that if the
starting point is we have an issue with our economic
performance and the capability and depth of our talent that
exists here and where it's been applied, you start to go,
if we were to do something, what would we do
that would make a difference, and that would make a difference.
(46:39):
Now would it have the right intended outcome that we're
looking for or would it be better than some of
these other ideas?
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Don't you know? I don't know about that.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
Yeah, it's not going to happen, right, And I think
you know that in my ideas, one of the things
I talked about was do nothing, which is a good
starting point, and do something.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Something question you finish off IDEA twenty six. I think
this is a really good call and it reflects what
Rowan and others have been saying on the podcast over
the last year or so.
Speaker 5 (47:09):
It's really about execution. You know, you can have a.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Strategy in and arguably we don't really have a strategy
for innovation in New Zealand. We've got a bunch of
actions that they want to take, but execution is everything,
and part of that is measuring what we do and
having that ability and that willingness to fail to do
things quickly, fail fast as startups talk about. You mentioned
(47:35):
that earlier in the podcast, that appetite for risk and
getting things wrong. So how do we and this is
your call, I think to corporate New Zealand as well,
and it goes back to the competitive issues we have
with in our monopolies but also in corporate New Zealand
as well. How do we execute better because that is
(47:57):
part of our productivity issue as well.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I mean, I think in the corporate land and you know,
the challenges is that there is no massive incentive for
them to be truly innovative when they're protecting their market
share and they don't want to.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Piss off the regulator.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
So that's a structural problem that we have that needs
to be solved with the regulation and changing market structures.
When I think about government and you know, the culture,
you know, like I know that you know, a public
service agency CEO engaged with me after that post and said,
look look at our this is what.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
We do around measuring all the things that we do.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
And I was like, actually, that's fair enough in terms
of what you're saying, but I said, how are those
initiatives judged in the context of what we need in
the economy, and he acknowledged that actually we don't do
that from a portfolio perspective, and so I think that's
that is a really big challenge. But it goes back
(48:50):
to what you said. We have this culture that we
can't be wrong and we need to get over that.
You know, incubators are an example, they worked for a time.
Why do we still have them. Why do we have
tech incubators designed from experts out of Israel that are
so poorly designed, not fit for purpose continuing in this government.
(49:17):
I don't understand that, Like any government minister that went
and talked to the market would be told they are stupid.
The model is so wrong, The cap tables are screwed up.
Good people and behind it. But you know, I even
heard yesterday that there is no intention from mb to
stop funding for tech incubators when they're screwed up. It's
(49:41):
just insane that we can allow this shit to keep
happening and there's just something wrong there. Where's the measurement
to prove it's a screw up.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Well, it's part of the problem, just that at those
really high levels and at minister level, we just let's
be we really haven't had switched on people in that
portfolio for a long time. Judith Collins was passionate and
enthusiastic about it. Has been shifted on was over a
burden with too many portfolio has never really got a
teeth into it. We've never really prioritized having someone who
(50:16):
can really get to grips with these issues and have
influence around a cabinet table.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
It does come back to leadership in the end around
the CEOs of our public agencies and leadership from the
ministers to enable these outcomes to happen. And you know,
we just have to be way more competitive. And so
I don't actually know what is the solution because we're
always going to have good, well meaning people in those roles.
(50:43):
That's probably why you kind I reach my conclusion that
goes it's better to do nothing than do it poorly,
and we're doing it poorly in so many places. And
that's why in some regards I'm pleased with the closing
of Callahan, because some stuff is gonna stop and that's
a good thing.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yet try and end on an optimistic I'll go on, no,
I know most of your families in Australia these days,
but you said to me earlier before we started recording,
your passionate about New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
To stay here.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
You might spend more time in Ausie with you, with
your kids and brothers and that, but you're committed to
New Zealand, so you obviously see a recovery, see upside,
see a lot of value, and still being here.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
I think there is no point in not having hope.
I think the other thing that I've learned through my
time at the ice House was, you know, there is
a culture of service because of what the country has
given back to me. I love this place, I love
the culture. I get frustrated, but you know, you either
have a choice to fuck off and then look after
(51:53):
yourself and your family, which is a fair thing to do,
or you go what can I do to contribute? The
thing I find more interesting these days because I'm not
really part of the ecosystem so to speak, you know,
in terms of having a daily job, is what can
I do to support, which is just helping companies, and
so most of what I do is help one company
(52:14):
at a time find their path through. Separate to that,
I go, okay, what more could I do? By listening
to the players in the ecosystem around what they're frustrated
with and then trying to come up with solutions. And so,
you know, I think New Zealand does have hope. Like
you talked earlier on before, how cool is it these days?
You can go to ice Hou's Adventures or you know,
(52:36):
and invest by their portal. You can go to shares
eas you can put money into rocket Lab. You know,
all my daughter's portfolios, my wife's portfolio, my father in
law's portfolio, my portfolio have all got rocket Lab exposure
and you can just do that in a click. And
so I think we want to see more of that.
And you know, I love seeing founders who are trying
(52:57):
to make it and break it and that's you know,
I want to keep doing that, and so I think
that's important that we all get in and contribute to
New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Brilliant. Well keep it up.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
You've had a huge influence on a lot of companies,
a lot of founders and integral to the health of
this ecosystem. So thanks for all your efforts and good
luck for your future investment decisions and mentoring the next
generation as well.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Thanks better.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Interesting guy, Andy Hamilton been just about everyone knows him
in one capacity or other in small business or the
startup scene. Has dealt with most of the startups that
were on the way up in the early to mid
to late two thousands and the twenty tens. Have you
(53:55):
had much to do with Andy?
Speaker 2 (53:57):
No, I know, I've never met Andy actually spoken to him,
but you know, he's just he has one of those names.
And I did follow the We Are Anarchy story as
it unfolded at that time, so very interesting to hear
his perspective of how it all happened. And it was
(54:20):
very interesting to kind of hear the tone of his
voice because there was definitely some underlying bitterness and resentment,
I think, but there was a lot of philosophy in
there as well, and like just the kind of sense
of like that that was rough, Now, let's just try
and pick ourselves up and move on, which is I
(54:43):
think reflects really nicely into that attitude that he expressed
around you know, it's okay to have a hard time,
It's okay for things to go wrong. It's about what
you do after that, and we need to as a
culture be more accepting and understanding of that approach. So yeah,
it it does seem to me that he is living
what he preaches as well.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah, and there's a lot has been written about the
details of that whole episode around We Are Monarchy and
in the GOO the agency that was doing a lot
of sort of government work at the time that Andy,
Pat McPhee and Monty Betham and others were involved in,
so a lot of accusations flew there. I think, as
(55:26):
Andy said, you know, the monarchy thing grew very quickly,
so they didn't handle that particularly well. He went from
being the CEO of an organization with an infrastructure around
him to basically doing it as a startup and realizing
that there's a lot more process involved than he thought,
especially when you're dealing with government contracts. But ultimately the
(55:48):
way they were treated was found to be really bad
in an independence investigation. The agency at the height of
the innovation ecosystem, Callahan Innovation, gave them a pretty raw
deal and that has implications for them, particularly for Andy Hamilton,
who has a reputation in the startic community. To be
(56:10):
at odds with, you know, the biggest funding agency in
that space is not a great place to be. But
there wasn't much sharden fraud really around the demise of Callahan.
I think he genuinely feels that they made errors in
a much greater scale not related to his situation that
needed to be addressed. It's the right thing for the country,
(56:31):
and he's actually thinking about what is right for the country,
which is why he's floated these twenty six ideas. Some
of them are never going to fly, but I sort
of feel we do in this whole area, you know,
the innovation area, that we do need a melting pot
of ideas at the moment because we've got some things
that have been rolled out by the government with some consultation,
(56:53):
but haven't been particularly well received by you know, really
smart people in this community who know how to get
things done. We do need that pressure now to be
applied on ministers and the government to say, well, you
floated this, but how are you going to do that
without any funding? Or do you really want to pick
winners over here? Isn't it better to fundamentally change the incentives,
(57:15):
such as the tax system, to encourage the sort of behavior.
That's the sort of conversation we need to have. A
lot of those ideas aren't probably going to fly, being
like compulsory military service, we had it decades ago, but
really probably not top of people's lists in New Zealand
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
Yeah, and I would I would probably say the issue
is the military side of it. If we said compulsory
community service perhaps and we said and it maybe not
even compulsory, maybe like heavily incentivized through some kind of
funding to say we'll pay you really well for six
months or a year to go and do some thankless
task giving back to the community. It could be military service,
(57:54):
that could be an option, but create a range of
things that people can or must to do, you know,
when they turn eighteen or whatever that actually teaches them
about the value of work, of community, giving back and
being part of something kind of larger in not in
a nationalistic way, but in a community minded way.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Yeah, and I think really he knows that one's not
going to fly, and you know, partly because it would
be super expensive. That's probably the key reason why it
was true it would cost the bomb. But it sort
of goes to a lot of his ideas, which is
around talents, which is building up really capable people. You know,
I get the sensor and he's not that impressed with
(58:37):
the management in this country of a lot of our corporates,
and part of that is the monopolistic position some of
them have. But the people inside those organizations, if you,
for instance, put them in a startup, they would not survive.
So how do we build this talent pool that helps
us achieve more and how do we keep our people
here and really invested in New Zealand. So I think
(59:00):
that's where he's coming from with that.
Speaker 2 (59:02):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I think going back to the
human centric thing as we talked about earlier, one of
the things that really stuck out to me was he
talked about you know people a lot, and I think
that's really important and giving people the opportunity to succeed
and fail and fail specifically and fail. And that goes
(59:23):
back into the VC world in the startup world again,
and we talked about it before, like if you don't
have a community system, a social system that will allow
for people to try and fail, that's not just set
up to like, you know, get people in debt and
extract value from their labor constantly and ring fence's innovation
(59:44):
to people who are you know, already reasonably well funded,
then you're never going to have that culture and that
ecosystem grow at least not in the way that we
need it to in this country. So yeah, that that's
something that I thought really stuck out to me was
his discussion around how do we raise up the people,
(01:00:06):
how do we get the talent, how do we show
people that they have talent, that they are capable.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
And yeah, other stuff like the you know, the woeful
state of our insiet X merging with Australia. Maybe not,
but so much.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Chat about that and business desk amongst the business people,
Like once a month somebody goes like, what are we
going to do with the z X?
Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
You have a chat about it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Yeah, it's just woeful at the moment. It's it's grim
and we need a strong interdex or do we maybe
we do you know, collaborate or a joint venture with
the ASX to a greater degree, but that is a
big constraint to raising capital.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Yeah, it's hard to kind of talk about the interview
because he just went over so much. So but I
think like what we can take away from it is
that people should be thinking about these things. It's not
just about like taking on board whatever the political party
says is the best idea. It's about going, Okay, well,
what are all the alternatives? You know, It's that classic
thing of like being an informed citizen and it is hard,
(01:01:07):
but you know, take the time and have a think
about it. I think is the real takeaway from Andy
Hamilton there is like, here's a bunch of my ideas.
I think some of them are probably dumb, but hey,
like what do you guys think? I think that's the
cool way to go about it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Yeah, So thanks to Andy Hamilton for coming on. You
can find a link to his twenty six ideas on
LinkedIn as a post there. We'll have a link to
that in the show notes. You'll find them in the
podcast section at business deesk dot co dot inj ed.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
You can stream the podcast there or download it and
your podcast app of choice. Please leave us a review
and subscribe while you're there.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
All the best, Bend. Thanks for everything. You've been a
fantastic co host across nearly ninety episodes Off the Business,
Off Tech, so we'll keep in touch. I'll look forward
to having you back on the show sometime soon, and
this time as a guest.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Yeah, thank you very much. It's been an extremely wonderful
learning experience. And working with you has been fantastic. I've
learned a huge amount as well from you, so thank
you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Peter, thank you, and you'll find me back here next
Thursday with a very special guest doing some pretty extraordinary
things in the area of telecommunications which could pay off
majorly for MARI and the burgeoning Mari economy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
I look forward to listening.
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Thanks Ben, goodbye, signing out, and we will see you again.
Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
You will
Amid the economic gloom, a lot of people in the
tech sector are floating some interesting ideas for how we
can get out of it and actually put some horse
power behind the government's growth agenda.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Tech itself is not the answer. It's seldom is, but
smart people in the tech space who understand disruption, how
to scale up quickly and fail fast, are kicking about
some interesting ideas that are worth considering.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
This week on the Business of Tech, powered by two Degrees,
business seasoned startup mentor and investor Andy Hamilton with twenty
six ideas to contribute to New Zealand's economic and social development.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Where all the kids coming out of finance degrees in
Otago and cannot we want to go for their first job.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's not Willlington, it's not Awkoin.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
It's sick, bright lights, big pay, and they're not coming
back to New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm been more for the last time and I'm Peter Griffin.
And Andy Hamilton also reflects on the shit storm he found
himself in a couple of years back, when he and
his business partners were accused of bad behavior towards some
of their suppliers and ended up in an acrimonious fight
with Callahan Innovation. That saga ended with a damning auditor
(01:16):
General's report that found the government agency really screwed things up.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It was a dark episode for the startup community, and
this is the first time really that Andy has discussed it,
so it's good to get his reflections on that episode
and what he learned from the whole sorry thing, which
really had no winners.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
We'll get into that soon, but first, Ben that bombshell
you just dropped about this being your last episode. We
really need to get to the heart of that. Obviously,
there's been a lot going on. It ensured me. I
was at going away drinks for a lot of people
last week who had been made redundant, So a lot
of really top journalists, including yourself, heading out into the world.
What has gone down sort of since we came back
(01:57):
from the summer break and insied me a publisher of
the New Zealand Herald business Deer Scan our own podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, I mean it's not been overly secretive, I guess.
I came back early in January and had my first
week back, and then in my second week back was
when the initial announcement was made to the newsroom at
large or to end zmy at large, I should say
about the restructuring that was coming through.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I guess, speaking frankly, I felt like because I had
a very a bit of an outlier role in the
business desk outlet, where the other my colleagues were generally
journalists and senior journalists, and then I had this outlier
(02:50):
role of tech editor, and so I thought, Okay, here
we go. This is probably going to be impacting me
in some way, strap in against and so it has
been about two months now of trying to work through
that process, and sure enough, Yeah, my role was disestablished
(03:10):
and people were asked whether they wanted voluntary redundancy, and
there's been you know, to talk about some of the
major major senior journalists who have taken that redundancy. So
I had to kind of look at whether I wanted
to reapply for certain jobs within the company. I didn't
feel in the end that any of those roles were
(03:30):
appropriate for me, and so I decided that I would
take redundancy. So that makes this my final episode of
the Business of Tech. Yeah, so there's been a lot
of talk a pivot to video, and then of course
there's been the recent change of shareholder with New Zealand
(03:52):
resident or citizen but originally from Canada, James Grennan. He
has taken ten percent shareholding, and I think the best
coverage for this has been Duncan Grieves The Fold and
some of his writing elsewhere. So if you're interested in
the whole story, I would recommend checking that out. But
(04:13):
James Grennan's perspective is I think quite clear from some
of his other outlets like The Centrist that he has
been involved in. And so there is now talk of
like what's going to happen within nzm ME and whether
there's going to be you know, changes editorial.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, slant will be put on the news based on
the ownership of the organization, which frankly we've seen with
the likes of the Washington Posts, most famously Jeff Bezos
is starting to assert his authority. So I guess if
you're the owner, you have legal power, you have the
right to do that.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and you know, maybe not in overt ways. And
I think a lot of the hard news will remain saying,
you know, this happens, and somebody gets out there and
reports it factually, but it's it comes to those opiniony editorially.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Side of the paper.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
That's where it could.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Start to shift.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Not saying it will. Nobody really knows, but that's just
some chatter around the place.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, So I guess the background to all of this
is just carnage in the media sector. We've seen particularly
last year with the demise of news Hub TV and
ZAD taking a massive haircut, stuff restructuring. So this is
the industry we find ourselves in. This is a move
(05:33):
by Indented ME to cut cost out of the business.
I think they want to save four million dollars a
year by reducing the editorial head count thirty roles I
think in total, a lot of them in production, but
a lot of them senior journalists, you know, the likes
of yourself Jamie Morton is science reporter going as well.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
You know a number of people big.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Names, Clear Trevette, political editor in the Herald News. So
obviously the news business is about breaking stories, expert analysis,
so we're going to lose a bit of that. So
I guess we're at a real sort of fork in
the road for the media business about what really counts
(06:18):
when it comes to what audiences are willing to pay for.
Do they just want breaking, live news, know what's going
on in the world. Do they want that sort of
in depth coverage and will they subscribe based on the
personalities who are providing that. I think that's really the
big question mark now for the likes of ensured Me
and others that are restructuring and changing their strategy slightly.
(06:41):
What is actually going to be sustainable as a news
business in a small market like New Zealand in the
coming years.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, and you know, like you said, personality is going
to be a big part of it, and z A
me the biggest personalities or the most I guess the
most popular personalities come out of the news talk, zed B,
Space or z B generally, and so there's probably going
to be I think there's going to be a reasonable
(07:08):
integration between z B and whatever Enzenemy decides to do
going forward. That'd be interesting to see how that plays
out as well. But I think it does just really speak,
like you said, to where we are with news media.
The Anzenemy needed to do something drastic in order to
(07:29):
keep its shareholders happy, and if you believe some of
them reporting that's coming out around Grennan's discussion with shareholders,
they aren't happy you know, for whatever reason, how profitable
should a newspaper be, you know, like does it need
to be to make its shareholders happy? What is a
shareholder's kind of expectation when they have when they have
(07:53):
holdings of a news a legacy news media outlet, Like
what are they actually what is important to them? And
I think we're starting to learn a little bit about
that in the modern world. So yeah, it's a bittersweet
obviously to leave business desk and to leave NZ. At me,
it's hard because it means that I'm leaving a nine
(08:14):
to five job that you know, has been has done
me very well, and.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
But I will point to this quote in aren Z's
Media Watch, which is where they went to a farewell
with some of the Enzendemy staffers and I was at that, Yeah,
that's right. I almost won't but I couldn't make it.
As said, one journalist, leaned on the bar and delivered
a bleaque equip this was meant to be awake for
(08:41):
the people leaving, but it's turned into a wake for
the people who are staying, the said, which was quite funny,
and you know, aly a lovely quote to put into
a media watch story. I'm not sure how entirely accurate
it is, but there is a sense of that to
me where I'm I don't think I fit into the
new enzodemy structure, and so yeah, I'm off to try
(09:02):
and see what else I can do. Whether that ends
up being a new full time role elsewhere, that's a possibility.
The other possibility is that I end up working for myself,
whether that's freelancing, contracting, whatever it is that I end
up doing. So I think the best way to keep
up with whatever I'm going to do is to you know,
(09:23):
follow me on LinkedIn, as we say at the end
of each episode, and you can also find me on
Blue Sky. Just a public service announcement that if you
do want to know where I am, that's where I am.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah. Nevertheless, you are, as they say on LinkedIn, open
to work.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, and you're going to go far. You're going to
do fine being you've got such a great network. And
as we keep talking about on the podcast in our
writing in Business Desk, it's the forces of disruption tech
that's what we love, that has completely disrupted the industry
that we trained to go into. But there are opportunities
(10:02):
there as well. Like at that going away there was
actually some excitement in the room. You saw these people
who some of them had been at the Herald for
twenty years going you know, I've got an open slate
really as to what i can do with the rest
of my working life. And there was talk of people
setting up substacks and you know, trying to like Bernardiccki's
(10:23):
done with the Khaka, that sort of thing, and try
and build their own audience. And it goes back to
that sort of personality driven news. People trust certain personalities
and we saw that with the the Joe Rogans and
that just building this massive listenership. So there is actual
opportunity out there. What is the media going to look
like in five to ten years. It's hard to know.
(10:45):
What we do know is that the business model is
broken and big tech has a part to play in that.
But we've got to play with the hands we've been dealt.
So I think there will be innovation in the New
Zealand media as a result of all these really and
trusted people going out potentially on their own.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well fingers cross, that can be part of that.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
The problem I think is is such a fragmented landscape.
If you do set up a substack, I mean dozens
of them. Now, how many substacks are people willing to
pay for? So this fragmentation is a real problem we
need to deal with. I want to support a lot
of my colleagues who are out there, but there needs
(11:25):
to be a more seamless way to do that and
an affordable way to at least support a pool of
people who are out on their own.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, So yeah, I guess that's kind of
where I am, where we are, And why don't you
talk a little bit about what's going to happen from
next week?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, So the podcast will continue and it'll be a
sole hosted podcast, So I'll be doing it myself, Ben,
which is going to be a struggle after eighty nine
episodes of being there with you through every episode and
you producing every episode, it's going to be quite differ
for me. But we've got great support from our sponsored
(12:03):
two degrees for the next year, so we will carry on.
We'll soldier on alone and hopefully have you back from
time to time on the podcast as you do forge
your own way out there. I know you've got irons
in the fire with various media outlets as well as
a sort of a freelancer, so we'll be seeing lots
of you around.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, hopefully I'd love to come back and check in
with how things are going. And obviously I'll be subscribing
as well, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Just before we move on to the next BOK, thank
you so much to all the listeners out there who
have stuck with us throughout this time and supported the
business attack, and thanks to you Peter for being a
wonderful co host as well.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
It's been a fantastic right Ben, and I just love
your insight, which is slightly different to mine on many
occasions and many issues and topics related to tech, but
just really love your thoughtful and very human centered sort
of view Off all of this, I get a bit
drawn up in the showiness of tech and what it
(13:02):
can do for society and the world, but quite often
you pull me back and say, well, hang on, have
you considered all of the implications of this, which is
so valuable. So I hope you keep that up because
we need those voices. Paris Marx is doing that sort
of thing at the moment to great effects, looking at
the rise of data centers and all these things, asking
(13:24):
those questions about, hey, is this actually a force for good?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I'm human centric. Maybe
that's my new branding.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Human centric tech.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
So, as we've discussed, media is one area where we're
facing structural issues to the detriment off the country. We think.
Others are our taxation system, how we educate our kids,
our healthcare system, even our stock exchange, the science system
that's supposed to underpin the innovation we do as a nation.
(13:56):
Everything is in flux, slightly broken, to be honest, no
longer fit for purpose. We know we need to get
our mojo back. We need some decent ideas about how
to get there.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And tech people are quick to offer them. Look at
Elon Musk's grand plan to make the US government more efficient.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, well that hasn't gone so well. Unless you think
just arbitrarily eliminating entire government agencies that do important work
is the way forward. I do not, But I've had
some really good conversations with people in and around our
own tech community who do care about New Zealand and
have ideas about how to shift the needle faster on
growth and tackle some of the big problems we face.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Andy Hamilton has spent the start of the year publishing
a series on LinkedIn looking at some of those problems
and opportunities.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
He's been around the startup scene for over twenty five years,
a big chunk of that time running the Ice House
in Auckland. He left there in January twenty twenty, just
before COVID arrived. Then he pivoted very quickly with the
entre Pat McFee and former boxer Monty Betham to create
the venture We Are Monarchy as the first lockdown hit.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
It was like a support network for small businesses trying
to navigate the bewildering new environment, and it did some
great work in those intense months, but also became involved
in a pretty rancorous dispute which Andy Hamilton was at
the heart of. It has come through that, but clearly
some scars are there, and some self reflection and some
perspective on where he's going and where the country is going.
(15:33):
So let's hear those in Peter's interview with Andy Hamilton.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Andy Hamilton, Welcome to the Business of Tech. A lot
of our listeners will know you personally, at least know
your name. A real stalwart of the innovation ecosystem for
the last twenty five years. The founder of ice House,
which has been integral to assisting small businesses and startups
over the last twenty years. Co founder of ice House Ventures,
(16:09):
an investor in your own right, the likes of Mint Innovation.
Tell some of the other companies that you're invested in.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, I mean, I think you know a couple of
things like I was the CEO found in CEO of
ice House, the first person that got hired and got
paid and ice House Ventures. I had a part to play,
but Robbie and the team rarely the ones that drove
that to the success.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I just enabled it. And sort of investments interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Power by proxy, credible company, blue Frog Breakfast would be
one of my most favorite ones. They Musley company, which
you know people would go, why would you invest in that? Well,
I've learned so much and I get to eat my
investment every morning. Other companies you know Midtimes, small investor
by ice House in quite a few, actually, Chatterist, which
(16:55):
is a new one right, which is doing some pretty
cool stuff around comments. That these founders have been able
to do is bring moderation, insight, engagement to that stream
because it is a hidden vault of opportunity for brands
if you can work with the crowd around your brands.
(17:17):
And you know, like a lot of other companies, I've
invested in small you know, I'm not a big check writer.
I'm a small check writer. I feel it gives me
the opportunity to go on the journey and to help
a little bit more with those companies. And I think
if you're not the founder, having the privilege to be
able to be on people's journeys is a pretty amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, and you've been on that journey with lots of companies.
A very different scene twenty years ago, the access to capital.
We didn't have all of these founders that were cashed
up from exits that really started with the trade means
and then Rod Drury, I guess, but what was it
like twenty years ago the scene compared to now.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
There wasn't an ecosystem to speak of. There were zemplars
offshore that we went and you know, we went to
Tech Coast Angels in San Diego, and you know, we
looked around in Singapore, China, in the UK, and I
think we just twenty years ago it was like, hey,
incubators are a thing. Hey, accelerators are a thing. Hey,
seed funds are things. And we just tried all those
(18:17):
things and I think, you know, it was disorganized but
with good purpose to try and make a difference to
help companies. And I think we just the secret was
doing lots of things and learning and failing in some
cases succeeding maybe doing more than we might or should have.
(18:40):
But I think the result is that we built compound
contribution for founders and businesses that has had a big
impact over time. In the case of ice House Adventures,
they've fundamentally created a moat and a marketplace where they
have ridibly strong brand and reputation with founders and with investors.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Absolutely, So that was a big part of your life,
you know, building that up, going on that journey. And
then I guess just before COVID, really you stepped down,
went out obviously still investing, consulting, and that we hit COVID,
and you do a really interesting thing. You set up
this platform called Manarchi, which I remember in the depths
(19:28):
of lockdown watching the comments on that platform. You know,
bakers or small businesses trying to reinvent themselves with e
commerce overnight, really powerful thing. What was the impetus? You
and Pat McFee, how did you come up with that?
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Look, it was three of us.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
It was Pat, Monty Betham, and myself right and right
on lockdown. We sat there and Monty said, after we'd
spent half a day helping with Indigo, their design agency,
sought themselves out from a cost base, renegotiate the rent
with the landlord, get the support to be able to survive.
(20:09):
Monty made the statement, he said, how we've just killed
it in half a day. How are other people coping
by doing this? Surely we could do something for them?
And that you know, it was Monty's leadership that led
us down the path of let's actually create something online
that enables people to ask for help and engage with
(20:29):
the community. Pretty simple idea that blew up.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
And you know you're in there very actively offering advice,
helping people out. Pat Other people were as well, So
it really started something.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Was it envisaged.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
As a temporary support network during really tough times or
did you envisage it as something like, well, this is
actually showing us that small businesses need the support on
an ongoing basis.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I mean I think a couple of things.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
The first thing that we the objective behind it was
to serve, so that there wasn't more behind that.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I think both.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Pat with his experience at Zero and my experience at
ice House, had always had in the back of our mind,
could you build, you know, a service model at scale
for small business because there's so many small businesses and
economies like New Zealand, so we had in our mind,
wouldn't it be cool if you could do something at scale?
But when we started, it was just let's just get
(21:30):
up and help some people and see where we go.
And then you know, we got momentum and we rolled
and we pick up some contracts and you know, the
network started to build and we're like, wow, this is
pretty cool.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
And then unfortunately it came undone.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And I want to talk about this because this was
a pretty traumatic period of time for you that we
don't need to get into all the you know, there's
a lot of history to this story, but essentially, through monarchy,
you worked with other partners, you were accused, you and
pattern your colleagues of bad conduct towards treating them poorly.
(22:05):
That then steamrolled into a process at Callahan Innovation because
Monarchy was going for some contracts, which is as you'd
expect if you want to build this thing, and Callahan
is offering money, you put your hand up for that.
There was due diligence done on you, guys, and as
we found out later, the Order to General found that
(22:26):
that was a very bad process. Callahan made some major
missteps there, treated you poorly. Talk us through how you
felt through all of that. Here's someone at the heart
of the innovation ecosystem, has twenty five years been working
with these people very closely, and then you find yourself
in the middle of this really acrimonious stoush with Callahan
(22:48):
Innovation and others in the startup community.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I don't like to think too much about it because
I think it was it was a pretty stressful time.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I mean, it felt like war, and it felt like
you're fighting.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Against you know, the opposition that you couldn't find or
you couldn't see, and that's a part of the social pylon.
I think no normal human being could reflect on that
time and say they didn't regret it, because the evidence
is all there that it just, you know, what started
as something with good intentions ended up being a complete
(23:24):
mess for multiple parties, and so you know, I regret
that it happened. It was not enjoyable. And you know,
did we win at the end?
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Do you know what? Who cares?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Because it's a moment in time. We got some things wrong.
We grew too fast, we were too loose, and we
had good intentions and we got let down by system.
But we let ourselves down in that. And you know
that doesn't mean they were wrong and we were right.
It just means it got screwed up. And it's really unfortunate.
(24:01):
But you learn a lot, you know, as a you know,
when you're a CEO of an organization, you have all
this infrastructure around you. Then when you go soul, there's
no one to actually support you. But what was incredible
for us is people like Mike Heron, people like Andrew
Simmons came and supported us. And that was a real
(24:22):
gift to us that Pat, Me and Monty had an
amazing family behind us, but we had these people who
gave so much to us in our fight, Peter and
Deborah Hall as well. And so I think that's something
to look back on and reflect on and just go
that's a life learning, but it's time to move on.
I still get the monarchy searchers on LinkedIn.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
I get on the.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Weekly update saying four people looked at monarchy, which is
pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Well, it is pretty cool because that is definitely part
of your legacy. At that crucial time for a couple
of years where people needed help, that was a go
to resource. So I think there's still a lot of
good will ye around that. Ultimately, you got an apology
from Callahan Innovation. I don't think you pursued legal action
in the end.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
We could have and we would have won if we
sued them, But do you know what, what's the point?
You get the apology, take that, move on.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And we're in a situation now where that agency is
being disestablished. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (25:20):
I mean, I feel that Callahan has always had a
hard road to hoe. I think it's had pretty poor
leadership over the time, but it will set up incorrectly
in my view, and I'm sad for the people you
know that go that are losing their jobs and moving
away from their own purpose driven jobs to contribute to
(25:43):
New Zealand. And so I feel no, you know, I'm
not sitting here smuggly going that's great that they're out.
It's unfortunate it's the way it is, but it's instructive
of the need in New Zealand for us to be
really focused on doing something that makes it contribution to
that ecosystem and our productivity and improving because we're in
(26:07):
the ship and we need to do things better.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
We are in the shit.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And this is really why I wanted to have you
on because over the last six weeks or so, for
a month, you've been every day on LinkedIn, publishing some
sort of big ideas about how we can get out
of the shit, and very much focused on your area
of expertise, which is how do we do more around
(26:31):
our startups, around our innovative companies, because we know that
that's where the high value salaries are, that's where the
wealth has created, the knowledge economy. Stuff is the future
of New Zealand to some degree, to a greater degree
than it has been in the past. How do we
do more of it? And as you say, we've thrown
lots of things at the wall over the last twenty
(26:51):
five years.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Some of it's been very.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Productive, there's been some wastage and we've had rowan since
in a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, outlining
in stark terms he thinks most of it's been wasted
dollars two and a half billion dollars via Callahan innovation.
He tottered up, which he's saying quite rightly, how do
you measure the outcome of that? We're out a fork
(27:13):
in the road really now with this government has a
growth agenda. We're sort of coming out of a recession,
so there is an opportunity to do something.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
Or not. I mean one of the things you float
here in your ideas.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Nothing is do nothing, which I think sort of Rowan
is sympathetic to, and so am I really is, if
you've got no really strong ideas, if you don't measure
things and draw learnings from those, why not just we're
known as a low corruption, reasonable taxation country. We've got
(27:48):
a very respectable business environment. Is that enough to allow
this to flourish? You really need to intervene.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
I mean it is an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
I mean I think we should start with I Actually
you agree with the whole idea that if you did nothing,
what comes out more rocket labs, more share ease, more
lands attacks, more mints. I think that's a like if
we you know, if we could leave it and just
do nothing to achieve the outcomes that we need, then
I think that's a viable strategy. I suppose the question
(28:20):
is that I've posed. I don't think that's enough for
us to win. And I think we've got a serious
misalignment issue in New Zealand around our talent into our
productive enterprises, you know, and the quality of the talent
in our big firms. You would never go and throw
into a Halter or a sharez ease, They're just not
(28:41):
good enough managers and leaders in our large banks, telco's
electricity companies, and so I actually think we've got a
talent issue, and linked to that, solving that issue maybe
pools of capital. But I don't believe doing nothing alone
will be an enough to get us there.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
But I could be wrong.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, And a lot of your ideas are very much
about we actively need to do something here around and
you're an advocate for sort of funding mechanisms, government funding
mechanisms to help our ecosystem grow. But I think one
of your big ones here at number five over index
(29:22):
on our people development attraction extension, let's scale up internships,
job work programs. So you've got, You've got this talent
base of management in our big companies, which is mixed quality.
But in terms of you know, the future Peter Becks
and the people behind Cherseys and those successful startups, how
(29:43):
do we get more of them better prepared, sooner to
go on that journey.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I mean, I think the exciting thing is I look
at outset Ventures, which I said in you know often,
you know, weekly Daily, and the interns that go into
those companies, at ternary lands, at tech others, they're getting
a great opportunity because they're getting they're getting exposed to
a Sean Simpson, those interns. So I think there is
an absolute secret source around. You know, if you look
(30:10):
at Craig from Holter, he was inspired by Peter Beck
working as an intern at Rocket Lab. So I think
doing more of those things. You know, why would you
would you rather go and work for a startup as
an intern or go and work at the ben Z
Give me a break, right?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
That to me?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
If you're an engineer or a marketer, getting that opportunity
to go into a deep tech startup, and it's just you know,
so I think we need more of that. I also
think we need to supplement the growth of our people
by attracting product builders from offshore to come and do
their startups here. Because when you're around great people, what
(30:47):
happens You actually start to do amazing things because you're inspired,
you're challenged by them, and you know, it's a different
competition game because all of a sudden, you're going, Wow,
this is possible. It's not just a competence thing, but
it's also a belief thing.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
ID twenty four issue an AI builder visa for a
New Zealand residency, so focusing specifically on AI expertise getting
that here.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
I mean, I think a couple of things in there.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I think, you know, maybe this is the randomness of
my ideas all that I forgot earlier on I talked
about a product builders visa, but then when I started
doing the AI strategy work stuff, I was like, we
should have an AI visa as well, specifically because I
just think we do need to look at future areas
and go, hey, if you've got AI competence and you'd
(31:35):
like to come and build, you know, in New Zealand,
we welcome you to come in. You know a but
like the Digital Nomad's visa, which that nomad's visa is
what everyone else is doing, and so we're just doing it.
So good, let's get it done that they can come,
but let's actually create a visa off that. That's for
AI founders who want to come and build their AI
(31:56):
business here. And hey, even crazy idea. If you've got
that AI visa, would we put some Aspire money alongside
or some co investment to enable you to get your
preceed right?
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Well, you know, so that's you're marriaging no sort of
two things talent and capital there, which is what we need.
And I don't know to what extent the government is
actually proactively going out and looking for the right sorts
of people. I gets Entita and out of flagging this
in the US and Europe and Asia as well, But hey,
(32:31):
should we go out and look for the top one
hundred AI experts in the world.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I think that's an interesting challenging question because whenever government
does something proactively top of funnel you get, you can
get some unintended outcomes.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Like Peter Thiel apparently.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, so I think I don't know about that. I think,
you know, Entit tries to do a pretty good job
around promoting new Zealand and look, you know, but you
get more impact on your pipeline of investor migrants by
what has happening with the current administration in the US
from those people who don't like it, who want to
come here, than you would do if New Zealand tried
(33:13):
to be proactive. And so I think the answer to
that is we need to be really good when they
hit our websites, when they hit staff to show inquiry,
to make it really easy for people to assess is
this what they want to do, and then you know,
and then the processing. So I think I think they're
doing a good job around the promoting, but I don't
(33:34):
know about the proactive targeting. I just don't know whether
that always works the best, you know. I think what
we know with immigration is set clear criteria to the
market and let the market, including the immigration advisors, run
the cutter on that with their clients and show interest.
And I think it's a really good thing that they
dropped the English language requirements. Do you I do, because
(33:58):
I just think it's racist that, you know, whoever decided
to increase the you know that was fundamentally trying to
restrict investor margarets from coming out of Asia.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
So talent and the associated investment incredibly important. We're doing
some things around that, maybe do more. Some big ideas
you have here, which is sort of in train idea
for we've got to bust the monopolies. The impact on
New Zealand's productivity.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
It's massive, massive.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Banks, not Telco. Yeah, it is sort of two degrees
has got to love those people, grocery, hardware, electricity. We
have just got somehow somewhere. We went so wrong in
allowing aggregation of power in high market shares and I
(34:52):
think it's just impacting on New Zealand. How to solve
it is pretty challenging. I don't see this government busting
the electricity industry by separating generators and retailers, which is
what they should do, because they're conflicted because they own
half of the gent tailors themselves, the government, and they're
not going to say they would not like to give
up on those dividends. And so I think it's a
(35:14):
massive issue that's monopolies. I would love to see tex
Edwards appointed a commissioner of the Commis Commission alongside the
other I think the Commists commissioner are doing a good job,
but we've just got some major major issues with aggregation
of market. Power, pet you just got to regulate it's
the same. And grocery they've got to drive structural separation.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
It's the same.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
And hardware like we are as you know, I spend
quite a bit of time in Australia and we're just
so much more expensive, so much more inefficient. It's killing
us what we're doing as a country. You know, we
don't need thirty two lines companies. We need to like Yeah,
I just think it's a very interesting thing that the
impact of having bad market structure to New Zealand's productivity first,
(36:02):
secondly around creating an environment for innovation where startups can
come out of that could go on to be global companies,
because you know, one of the things I'd like to see,
you know, if the market cap of zero is so
many billion, rocket lab is so many billion, how many
of those do we need for New Zealand to be transformed?
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Is it twenty? Is it fifty?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
So when I actually think about success, I just think
fifty rocket labs.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
That's crazy. But wouldn't that be amazing if we could
achieve that.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Another idea which is topical at the moment a better
tax system unpack that for us.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I think there's an opportunity to do things better, and
we should do things better, but you know, we have
to be mindful that we're doing this in a competitive world.
So what does you know, For example, do we want banks, groceries,
electricity companies pain are low tax rate? No, they should
(37:03):
be paying higher tax rate. But do we want the
likes of the rocket labs and others that are internationally
having a more effective tax you know payment. I think
that's a really interesting and challenging question. And I know
my mates at the IDEA will say, you're crazy, you
can't have a two tax system. But I think fundamentally
(37:23):
we've got a misalignment issue and we've got to find
ways to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
And traditionally no one has wanted to touch capital gains
because it will affects most of the wealth and New
Zealand tied up in property. So you sell your house
or your second house, your rental house or something, capital
gains tax on that. But surely now this is the
point of differentiation for anyone other than the coalition government,
right if Labor puts that out there, We've seen the
(37:51):
pain that we're going through. We don't have enough money
to fund our infrastructure, our health sect there. It's only
going to get worse with an aging population, things like
climate change. Do you think New Zealand is starting to
wake up to the idea that this is a more
efficient way to fund the things that we need.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I think it is.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
But you know, part of the challenge that we have
is that our leaders are not courageous enough. You know,
one of the reflections I had on the Monarchy Callahan
experience was we had a government culture that was not
prepared to admit they were wrong. And they were given
multiple opportunities in our dispute with them to just go, yeah,
(38:29):
we've screwed up. Let's find a way to resolve right.
Why wouldn't they admit their wrong because they were too
worried what their board and their minister and their government
would say. There's a real endemic problem with admitting your
wrong and it's okay, as Rowan has said, it's good
(38:50):
to be wrong, and so we need that culture that goes,
this is not working, let's try something else. And I think,
you know, that's more leadership, more courage and you know,
I think more direction from our leaders to our officials
and agencies saying it's okay to screw up, you know,
(39:10):
learn from it. Yeah, And one thing I want to say,
I also think, you know, from a tax position. I've
always found it very odd that and founders can be
capital gains free, but an early employee in the first,
first year or second year of joining the startup, who
is not a founder or a co founder but as
close to it as possible, has to pay tax on their.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Esop or their outcomes.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Now I don't mind them paying taxes, but it's wrong
that a founder pays no tax and then someone who
joins his head of stack in the first.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Year has to pay the tax on that.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And the government is doing something in this space, but
it's token. Really, it's increasing the tax threshold a small amount.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
But it was a joke what they did. It was
a joke. I was just like, are you kidding mesulting?
Speaker 5 (40:02):
Really it is after all of that.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
It's just stupid.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
But a lot of people, unfortunately have good intentions in
Wellington around doing these things, but they have no real
understanding of how it actually works.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
Make no difference.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
It's like the fIF the foreign investor rules, which we
know are going to be changed. That they were well
intentioned idea around taxing your overseas income and deemed income,
but it had such a negative impact on foreigners coming
here and New Zealanders returning having to leave again because
of their tax bills.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
We could do way better.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
We're just going to be a lot smarter around the
ship we're doing because you know, it's a competitive world.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
You look at my children, you know, and their age groups.
You know, I don't know what the number is of
their year thirteen's that are going to university in Australia
compared to five, ten, fifteen years ago.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
It's way high.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Where all the kids coming out of finance degrees in
Otago and Canterbury want to go for their first job.
It's not Wellington, it's not Auckland. It's Sydney, bright lights,
big pay, great life, and they're not coming back to
New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
Eight twelve merge with Australia.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yeah, there you go, so kangaroo, let's go. No, that's
just me taking the person.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Maybe inspired by Donald Trump's fifty for his state being Canada,
but look, there is a good argument for tighter integration
with Australia.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
We've got close.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Relations, especially from a defense perspective.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Absolutely, And we talked in last week's episode with Reuben
Staff about this whether we should join AUCAST, for instance.
In his view as it's basically no brainer. It's either
that or iarmed independence with a decrepit military in New Zealand.
We've seen China in the South Pacific.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I find that one decision around August extremely difficult a
trade relationship with China, right, I find it extremely difficult
to I'm not competent enough about the consequences of each
In some regards, I just would prefer we stood on
the fence and didn't but I don't in this current environment.
(42:12):
It doesn't feel like we're able to do that. So
it's a scary decision.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
Yeah, I think you point out you want to get.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Onto the really controversial one around military service, don't you.
Speaker 5 (42:22):
I do.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
But first, just on the injet X, I think you
point out there that the market caps last year was
one hundred and eighty five billion, which isn't too bad
as a ratio of GDP compared to other countries. But
how about we get really aspirational, get a market cap
of the inst X that was one to one with
(42:44):
our GDP.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
So how would you do that? Yeah, that's like is
that two and a half times what it is now? Yeah,
you know, you have to become valuable as a partner
to the growing companies like the Rocket Labs and others.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
So how would you do that? You know? And I
don't think they've got any idea how to do that
at all.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
When you see that the ASX actively here, they've got
an office here that's sponsoring the tech awards. They are
basically cherry picking the best we have and saying, come
and do it on the AX.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Well, and there is a simple reason for that. Why
because your tech company gets into a bigger market, a
bigger tam, higher valuations, deeper capital pools. Why do you
think zero listed in the AX? And so I think,
why do you know Volpara lists on the AX? I
mean fundamentally, it's access to bigger pools of capital, which
(43:38):
then suggests me, I know there's a negative to NZX
merging with the ASX, but what you know, what are
the pros that come from that that would enable our
board to have a market cap that's a lot higher. Again,
this is not saying in my view that NZX is
poorly run. It's saying we need a better solution around
(43:59):
our public market to support the growth of New Zealand
and New Zealand companies.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
And it's sad that just the attractiveness of what's on
offer here is non area as great. It doesn't necessarily
have to be. I want to invest in New Zealand
tear companies.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Yep, it's an opportunity.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Okay, let's get onto compulsory military service idea number sixteen.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Explain that well, you know, you see it in Israel, maybe, Norway, Singapore,
a number of other countries.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
It was controversial when I put the idea out.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
I've had a you know, quite a few people say
it's the most stupidous idea. What were you thinking? Context
is know me thinking what are initiatives that would make
a material difference to our economic performance. I wasn't thinking
about cost. I was thinking about service back to New
Zealand for a year or two year period to contribute,
(44:56):
for example, to our infrastructure problem by having you know,
tens of thousands of kiwis contributing. I think I didn't
quite think through all of the costs and inputs, but
I can see the benefits that come to other economies
by having it. It wasn't about militarizing New Zealand. That
wasn't about that. But you know, it was like what
(45:18):
could make a difference to our GDP and also what
might make a difference to our culture over time. But
I didn't want us to be like Israel. We will
never be like Israel because we don't have the forces
that they do. We don't also have the volume of
scientists and engineers that they do. But you know, the
whole idea was what would make a difference to New
(45:38):
Zealand economically, And you know, I accept people's alternative views
that it would be stupid.
Speaker 5 (45:45):
Yeah, and you mentioned Israel.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I meant many tech people who their formative years were
in the IDF where they got to work on you know,
top level cryptography projects, all that sort of thing, which
led them to an to the startup world. That's a
different deal. They're very militarized nation, but just spending in
an early part of your life two or three years
(46:08):
doing this.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
And I think you or I could argue against or
for those things, and the reality is that they're just ideas.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
One of the things I would say that if the
starting point is we have an issue with our economic
performance and the capability and depth of our talent that
exists here and where it's been applied, you start to go,
if we were to do something, what would we do
that would make a difference, and that would make a difference.
(46:39):
Now would it have the right intended outcome that we're
looking for or would it be better than some of
these other ideas?
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Don't you know? I don't know about that.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
Yeah, it's not going to happen, right, And I think
you know that in my ideas, one of the things
I talked about was do nothing, which is a good
starting point, and do something.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Something question you finish off IDEA twenty six. I think
this is a really good call and it reflects what
Rowan and others have been saying on the podcast over
the last year or so.
Speaker 5 (47:09):
It's really about execution. You know, you can have a.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Strategy in and arguably we don't really have a strategy
for innovation in New Zealand. We've got a bunch of
actions that they want to take, but execution is everything,
and part of that is measuring what we do and
having that ability and that willingness to fail to do
things quickly, fail fast as startups talk about. You mentioned
(47:35):
that earlier in the podcast, that appetite for risk and
getting things wrong. So how do we and this is
your call, I think to corporate New Zealand as well,
and it goes back to the competitive issues we have
with in our monopolies but also in corporate New Zealand
as well. How do we execute better because that is
(47:57):
part of our productivity issue as well.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
I mean, I think in the corporate land and you know,
the challenges is that there is no massive incentive for
them to be truly innovative when they're protecting their market
share and they don't want to.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Piss off the regulator.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
So that's a structural problem that we have that needs
to be solved with the regulation and changing market structures.
When I think about government and you know, the culture,
you know, like I know that you know, a public
service agency CEO engaged with me after that post and said,
look look at our this is what.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
We do around measuring all the things that we do.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
And I was like, actually, that's fair enough in terms
of what you're saying, but I said, how are those
initiatives judged in the context of what we need in
the economy, and he acknowledged that actually we don't do
that from a portfolio perspective, and so I think that's
that is a really big challenge. But it goes back
(48:50):
to what you said. We have this culture that we
can't be wrong and we need to get over that.
You know, incubators are an example, they worked for a time.
Why do we still have them. Why do we have
tech incubators designed from experts out of Israel that are
so poorly designed, not fit for purpose continuing in this government.
(49:17):
I don't understand that, Like any government minister that went
and talked to the market would be told they are stupid.
The model is so wrong, The cap tables are screwed up.
Good people and behind it. But you know, I even
heard yesterday that there is no intention from mb to
stop funding for tech incubators when they're screwed up. It's
(49:41):
just insane that we can allow this shit to keep
happening and there's just something wrong there. Where's the measurement
to prove it's a screw up.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Well, it's part of the problem, just that at those
really high levels and at minister level, we just let's
be we really haven't had switched on people in that
portfolio for a long time. Judith Collins was passionate and
enthusiastic about it. Has been shifted on was over a
burden with too many portfolio has never really got a
teeth into it. We've never really prioritized having someone who
(50:16):
can really get to grips with these issues and have
influence around a cabinet table.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
It does come back to leadership in the end around
the CEOs of our public agencies and leadership from the
ministers to enable these outcomes to happen. And you know,
we just have to be way more competitive. And so
I don't actually know what is the solution because we're
always going to have good, well meaning people in those roles.
(50:43):
That's probably why you kind I reach my conclusion that
goes it's better to do nothing than do it poorly,
and we're doing it poorly in so many places. And
that's why in some regards I'm pleased with the closing
of Callahan, because some stuff is gonna stop and that's
a good thing.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yet try and end on an optimistic I'll go on, no,
I know most of your families in Australia these days,
but you said to me earlier before we started recording,
your passionate about New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
To stay here.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
You might spend more time in Ausie with you, with
your kids and brothers and that, but you're committed to
New Zealand, so you obviously see a recovery, see upside,
see a lot of value, and still being here.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
I think there is no point in not having hope.
I think the other thing that I've learned through my
time at the ice House was, you know, there is
a culture of service because of what the country has
given back to me. I love this place, I love
the culture. I get frustrated, but you know, you either
have a choice to fuck off and then look after
(51:53):
yourself and your family, which is a fair thing to do,
or you go what can I do to contribute? The
thing I find more interesting these days because I'm not
really part of the ecosystem so to speak, you know,
in terms of having a daily job, is what can
I do to support, which is just helping companies, and
so most of what I do is help one company
(52:14):
at a time find their path through. Separate to that,
I go, okay, what more could I do? By listening
to the players in the ecosystem around what they're frustrated
with and then trying to come up with solutions. And so,
you know, I think New Zealand does have hope. Like
you talked earlier on before, how cool is it these days?
You can go to ice Hou's Adventures or you know,
(52:36):
and invest by their portal. You can go to shares
eas you can put money into rocket Lab. You know,
all my daughter's portfolios, my wife's portfolio, my father in
law's portfolio, my portfolio have all got rocket Lab exposure
and you can just do that in a click. And
so I think we want to see more of that.
And you know, I love seeing founders who are trying
(52:57):
to make it and break it and that's you know,
I want to keep doing that, and so I think
that's important that we all get in and contribute to
New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
Brilliant. Well keep it up.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
You've had a huge influence on a lot of companies,
a lot of founders and integral to the health of
this ecosystem. So thanks for all your efforts and good
luck for your future investment decisions and mentoring the next
generation as well.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Thanks better.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Interesting guy, Andy Hamilton been just about everyone knows him
in one capacity or other in small business or the
startup scene. Has dealt with most of the startups that
were on the way up in the early to mid
to late two thousands and the twenty tens. Have you
(53:55):
had much to do with Andy?
Speaker 2 (53:57):
No, I know, I've never met Andy actually spoken to him,
but you know, he's just he has one of those names.
And I did follow the We Are Anarchy story as
it unfolded at that time, so very interesting to hear
his perspective of how it all happened. And it was
(54:20):
very interesting to kind of hear the tone of his
voice because there was definitely some underlying bitterness and resentment,
I think, but there was a lot of philosophy in
there as well, and like just the kind of sense
of like that that was rough, Now, let's just try
and pick ourselves up and move on, which is I
(54:43):
think reflects really nicely into that attitude that he expressed
around you know, it's okay to have a hard time,
It's okay for things to go wrong. It's about what
you do after that, and we need to as a
culture be more accepting and understanding of that approach. So yeah,
it it does seem to me that he is living
what he preaches as well.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah, and there's a lot has been written about the
details of that whole episode around We Are Monarchy and
in the GOO the agency that was doing a lot
of sort of government work at the time that Andy,
Pat McPhee and Monty Betham and others were involved in,
so a lot of accusations flew there. I think, as
(55:26):
Andy said, you know, the monarchy thing grew very quickly,
so they didn't handle that particularly well. He went from
being the CEO of an organization with an infrastructure around
him to basically doing it as a startup and realizing
that there's a lot more process involved than he thought,
especially when you're dealing with government contracts. But ultimately the
(55:48):
way they were treated was found to be really bad
in an independence investigation. The agency at the height of
the innovation ecosystem, Callahan Innovation, gave them a pretty raw
deal and that has implications for them, particularly for Andy Hamilton,
who has a reputation in the startic community. To be
(56:10):
at odds with, you know, the biggest funding agency in
that space is not a great place to be. But
there wasn't much sharden fraud really around the demise of Callahan.
I think he genuinely feels that they made errors in
a much greater scale not related to his situation that
needed to be addressed. It's the right thing for the country,
(56:31):
and he's actually thinking about what is right for the country,
which is why he's floated these twenty six ideas. Some
of them are never going to fly, but I sort
of feel we do in this whole area, you know,
the innovation area, that we do need a melting pot
of ideas at the moment because we've got some things
that have been rolled out by the government with some consultation,
(56:53):
but haven't been particularly well received by you know, really
smart people in this community who know how to get
things done. We do need that pressure now to be
applied on ministers and the government to say, well, you
floated this, but how are you going to do that
without any funding? Or do you really want to pick
winners over here? Isn't it better to fundamentally change the incentives,
(57:15):
such as the tax system, to encourage the sort of behavior.
That's the sort of conversation we need to have. A
lot of those ideas aren't probably going to fly, being
like compulsory military service, we had it decades ago, but
really probably not top of people's lists in New Zealand
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
Yeah, and I would I would probably say the issue
is the military side of it. If we said compulsory
community service perhaps and we said and it maybe not
even compulsory, maybe like heavily incentivized through some kind of
funding to say we'll pay you really well for six
months or a year to go and do some thankless
task giving back to the community. It could be military service,
(57:54):
that could be an option, but create a range of
things that people can or must to do, you know,
when they turn eighteen or whatever that actually teaches them
about the value of work, of community, giving back and
being part of something kind of larger in not in
a nationalistic way, but in a community minded way.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Yeah, and I think really he knows that one's not
going to fly, and you know, partly because it would
be super expensive. That's probably the key reason why it
was true it would cost the bomb. But it sort
of goes to a lot of his ideas, which is
around talents, which is building up really capable people. You know,
I get the sensor and he's not that impressed with
(58:37):
the management in this country of a lot of our corporates,
and part of that is the monopolistic position some of
them have. But the people inside those organizations, if you,
for instance, put them in a startup, they would not survive.
So how do we build this talent pool that helps
us achieve more and how do we keep our people
here and really invested in New Zealand. So I think
(59:00):
that's where he's coming from with that.
Speaker 2 (59:02):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I think going back to the
human centric thing as we talked about earlier, one of
the things that really stuck out to me was he
talked about you know people a lot, and I think
that's really important and giving people the opportunity to succeed
and fail and fail specifically and fail. And that goes
(59:23):
back into the VC world in the startup world again,
and we talked about it before, like if you don't
have a community system, a social system that will allow
for people to try and fail, that's not just set
up to like, you know, get people in debt and
extract value from their labor constantly and ring fence's innovation
(59:44):
to people who are you know, already reasonably well funded,
then you're never going to have that culture and that
ecosystem grow at least not in the way that we
need it to in this country. So yeah, that that's
something that I thought really stuck out to me was
his discussion around how do we raise up the people,
(01:00:06):
how do we get the talent, how do we show
people that they have talent, that they are capable.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
And yeah, other stuff like the you know, the woeful
state of our insiet X merging with Australia. Maybe not,
but so much.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Chat about that and business desk amongst the business people,
Like once a month somebody goes like, what are we
going to do with the z X?
Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
You have a chat about it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Yeah, it's just woeful at the moment. It's it's grim
and we need a strong interdex or do we maybe
we do you know, collaborate or a joint venture with
the ASX to a greater degree, but that is a
big constraint to raising capital.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Yeah, it's hard to kind of talk about the interview
because he just went over so much. So but I
think like what we can take away from it is
that people should be thinking about these things. It's not
just about like taking on board whatever the political party
says is the best idea. It's about going, Okay, well,
what are all the alternatives? You know, It's that classic
thing of like being an informed citizen and it is hard,
(01:01:07):
but you know, take the time and have a think
about it. I think is the real takeaway from Andy
Hamilton there is like, here's a bunch of my ideas.
I think some of them are probably dumb, but hey,
like what do you guys think? I think that's the
cool way to go about it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Yeah, So thanks to Andy Hamilton for coming on. You
can find a link to his twenty six ideas on
LinkedIn as a post there. We'll have a link to
that in the show notes. You'll find them in the
podcast section at business deesk dot co dot inj ed.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
You can stream the podcast there or download it and
your podcast app of choice. Please leave us a review
and subscribe while you're there.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
All the best, Bend. Thanks for everything. You've been a
fantastic co host across nearly ninety episodes Off the Business,
Off Tech, so we'll keep in touch. I'll look forward
to having you back on the show sometime soon, and
this time as a guest.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Yeah, thank you very much. It's been an extremely wonderful
learning experience. And working with you has been fantastic. I've
learned a huge amount as well from you, so thank
you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Peter, thank you, and you'll find me back here next
Thursday with a very special guest doing some pretty extraordinary
things in the area of telecommunications which could pay off
majorly for MARI and the burgeoning Mari economy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
I look forward to listening.
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Thanks Ben, goodbye, signing out, and we will see you again.
Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
You will
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