EP 186 Stuart Dullard, Partner, Ashurt

Open the Pod Bay Doors is back for 2025!

To kick off the year, host Ian Gardiner sits down with Stuart Dullard, Partner at Ashurst, for a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities facing founders in today’s venture landscape.

Ashurst is a global corporate law firm with over 30 offices worldwide. Stuart leads the High Growth and Venture Capital team in Australia and is the global co-head of the Tech M&A practice. Described by Ian as one of Australia’s most experienced startup lawyers, Stuart has built a career helping early-stage, high-growth tech companies navigate complex legal and funding challenges. 

This episode is a must-listen for founders looking to effectively manage their funding journey and achieve sustainable growth.

Key takeaways:

🚀 Ashurst’s strategy for building long-term advisory relationships with high-growth startups
💰 Challenges and strategies for securing funding
🗺️ Navigating venture capital and private equity landscapes
💡 Understanding legal frameworks, investor relationships, and the funding process
📑 Structuring deals, negotiating terms, and setting up for successful fundraising rounds

Quick Fire Round:

📚 Book recommendation – Fiction: The Goldfinch (“Read the book, don’t watch the movie!”) | Non-fiction: Time to Breathe by Bill Mitchell
🎧 Podcast recommendation – The Teacher’s Pet (The Australian), The Sure Thing (AFR), Liar Liar (The Age)
👨‍💼 Favourite CEO – The founders of Canva for their business success and people-first approach
🗞️ News source – Radio National every morning
🛠️ Productivity tool – Time to Breathe + morning exercise
📱 Favourite app – The New York Times Games App
📺 TV or movie recommendation – The West Wing
🎤 TED Talk topic – The highs and lows of the founder journey

🎙️ Tune in now for an insightful conversation on funding, legal strategy, and the startup journey!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

S1 (00:08):
Hi, everyone. Ian here. Now on the show today we
have Stuart Dullard. Stuart is a partner at global law
firm Ashurst. Spaced out. Sidney, why have we got our
lawyer on the show? I hear you ask. Well, look,
when you think of the startup ecosystem, you probably think
of founders and or investors, but there's plenty of other
people in the ecosystem. Lawyers are a very important part
of that ecosystem. Whether you're doing transaction raise capital transaction

(00:32):
to sell your business, secondary share sale, employment contract, all
of this stuff needs lawyers and more importantly, good lawyers.
And there are not, you know, there's a few and
we talk about it on the episode, but there's not
a huge number of experienced good startup lawyers across Australia.
And Stuart would be classed as one of them. So
I was pretty keen to get him on the show.

(00:53):
He's been a friend of, uh, of mine and innovation
Bay for quite a long time now. Had a great
chat with him. So why don't we don't we jump
over and hear my conversation with Stuart Dillard? All right. Welcome, everyone.
I'm sitting here with Stu Dillard. Uh, Stu is a
partner at Ashurst, and we are in your lovely office

(01:14):
in Martin Place. So thanks for hosting us here today, Stu.

S2 (01:17):
Well, very glad to be here. A little bit nervous
about lawyers. Don't often get gigs on podcasts and have
to be careful about what I say.

S1 (01:23):
Oh, you're not gonna have to be careful with me.
I was just disappointed. We were meant to be in
the Prime Minister's room, and we got put in a
different room. Yeah, it's still a nice room, don't get
me wrong.

S2 (01:31):
Yeah, well, we had to sort of make you second
best to the Prime Minister today, but, uh, otherwise, if
we do a second one, we can. We can go
to the Prime Minister's office.

S1 (01:38):
And it's not that the Prime Minister was a Ashurst partner.
Not the one whose office this was. I think Malcolm
Turnbull was at one point you mentioned, but not who was.
Who was it, Bob Hawke?

S2 (01:48):
Yeah. So we're in the CBA building in Martin Place
that I think a lot of Australians will remember. When
you were a primary school student, CBA would come around
and teach you the importance of savings. And they'd give
you this money box, which was a rectangle shaped money box. Um,
that was in the image of this exact building. So
this is a very old building that we're in in

(02:09):
Martin Place. And because or at least since federation, um,
the politicians have been down in Canberra and the Prime
Minister's primary office, unsurprisingly, is in Canberra. But he needed
an office in Sydney. And what better place than the
illustrious Commonwealth Bank of Australia building in Martin Place? So yes,
there was a portion of this building carved out for

(02:29):
the Prime Minister's office from, you know, early in the
20th century, up until I think Bob Hawke was the
last one that used to occupy our office. But that
was well before our law firm was here. So we
can't claim to say that we just sublet a corner
of our office to to the sitting prime minister. All right.

S1 (02:44):
Let's move on from the Prime Minister's office. Trivia. I
love it, though. That's great. Look, why don't you tell
us a bit more about Ashurst and maybe your role here.

S2 (02:51):
So, look, Ashurst is a global corporate law firm, of
which there are a number. So we've got offices all
around the globe. Practicing in all the parts of corporate
law that that you would expect. I'm a partner, as
you mentioned, in the Sydney. Office. And I think I've
got the best job at the firm. So when the

(03:12):
firm redid its strategy, as we do from time to
time a little over a decade ago. We have a
number of focuses, but two of the core focuses are
on technology and energy transition. Um, as many large corporate
law firms have, we've got a number of, of large
corporate clients that are either pure play tech companies or

(03:33):
large corporates that have got big tech, um, modernisation and
expenditure budgets. But we wanted to go broader than that
and we thought, look, there's a huge amount of innovation globally, uh,
particularly through Australia and Asia. PAC and the managing partner
was thinking, well, how do we service that section of
the market And how do we get access to that

(03:55):
section of the market? And I think the the default
strategy by some large corporate law firms are, well, when
one of these high growth innovation companies grows up and
is a is a unicorn or a decacorn or worth
a lot of money, then we can start to service
them and provide excellent, um, legal services, which many of
them do. But our firm took a little bit of

(04:16):
a different approach and said we would like to partner
with early stage, high growth technology companies, early build a
long term relationship with these companies. So when some of
these companies turn out to be, you know, remarkably successful,
we can take a small amount of pride thinking we
help them along the way, but also we'll have a

(04:38):
trusted advisor relationship, not just being Johnny come lately to
do the billion dollar IPO because they're good at billion
dollar IPOs, which which many of them are. And I
had a small hand in devising that strategy. Um, but
I'm not going to win any McKinsey Awards for strategies,
because that is what what, um, most Silicon Valley law
firms do. They they go in, they work, provide excellent

(05:00):
service to these high growth companies. And then some of
them turn out to be wildly successful and will have
long term, um, relationships with these companies. And in terms
of how we think about that from a client perspective, um,
you can be a high growth startup or whatever stage
you are and have a small law firm when you're small,
a medium law firm when you're medium size, maybe a

(05:22):
national law firm when you're national, and then an international
law firm when you when you go above and beyond
Australia or whatever your home jurisdiction is. We would like
to say it might make sense to consider partnering with
someone that is global from the beginning, um, and providing
the best advice you can obtain from early days. And

(05:43):
then we'll be with you the whole journey. Yeah. Um,
and we, we think that we were a little bit
different in in that approach. There are a couple of
other firms in Australia that do that, but the vast
majority don't.

S1 (05:55):
Right. So your day to day life, like just give
us a quick glimpse into the day in the life
of Stu Dillard. Ashurst partner.

S2 (06:03):
Okay. Well, look, I like to get my exercise in early,
so I sort of the alarm goes off or sort
of something starting with a five and go for a
cycle or walk the dog or go to the gym.
And then I'm usually at the desk at home, um,
from before 8:00. I like to to do my quiet
thinking and delegation work early, so I very rarely will
I take a meeting between 8:00 and 11. I think

(06:25):
if you're going to give a lawyer a fighting chance
of doing something in the day, the least you can
do is give her or him instructions before ten in
the morning. So I try to do that, and then
usually from 11 till 5 or 6, I'll be on
calls or in meetings. Um, walk the dog again, as
he reminds me, if I forget to do that up in, uh,
up in the Paddington five ways Park between 5 and

(06:49):
6 and then, um, just get whatever needs to be
done towards the end of the day. And that usually
involves signing off on work that my team has done.

S1 (06:56):
But I mean, how active, you know, partners still do
the work. I mean, that's maybe what some of the
audience doesn't understand. I mean, like, you don't sit in
having tea at the Ritz, handing out, uh, work to
your juniors like you are actually on the tools.

S2 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah. Yes. In this jurisdiction, definitely. Maybe there are
others where you get to play a lot more golf. Um,
I'm pretty lousy at golf, so I don't need to
do that, but. No, no, look, I, I would still, um.
I'm not going to number the hours, but still do.
The vast preponderance of my day would be, um, negotiating
transactions on on calls with the other side or explaining

(07:31):
the documents to the client, reviewing the work and signing
off on it. So, yeah, look, there's definitely some going
to the odd lunch. I won't lie, I do like
a sushi lunch, um, down at MLC, but the vast
preponderance of the day is is being on the tools
which which actually suits me just fine. Um, I think, um,
there's a book called The Pinstripe Prison that Lisa Perry wrote.

(07:54):
She's a she was, um, a journalist, I think, for
many years with S.m.h.. She got a perfect score in
the school certificate and thought I'd rather than do journalism.
I'll do law because I've got this perfect mark and
then study law. And then, um, went into a law
firm because she didn't want to waste her first class
honours degree in law by being a journalist. She went
into a law firm, and she woke up one day
and said, why am I a lawyer? I've always had

(08:16):
this passion for journalism and I didn't want to waste Mark.
So she wrote this brilliant book about how a lot
of people go into law consulting, uh, or investment banking
because they don't want to waste marks and they wake
up one day thinking, I never really wanted to do
this job. I was passionate about maybe something in Stem
or startups or journalism or something that required a slightly

(08:36):
lower high school. Um, Mark. But I think I'm in the, the, um,
the fortunate minority that actually really love being a lawyer. Um,
I really like the people I work with. I like
the team, and I like being on the tools. For me,
it's a little bit like, um, putting a puzzle together
is getting a document right to make it elegant to

(08:56):
to meet whatever challenge you're trying to do.

S1 (08:58):
And what about the mix of work? Like, how do
you bucket it? I mean, it's not all fundraising. It's
probably not all M&A. I mean, like, general legal, like. Yeah,
give us a bit of a pie chart of your, uh,
of your, uh, work.

S2 (09:13):
Yeah. So look, I'd say probably 60% up would be, uh,
fundraising either investor side but mainly company side. Uh, and
then the 40% of the remaining 100 would be 30%
would be, um, M&A. So helping technology companies buy other
companies run sale processes or sometimes acting for large corporates acquiring.

(09:34):
And then I do for my sins. I run the uh,
the company's technology and high growth Esop plan, which is
the the most broken part of the startup legal field,
and then just dealing with general inquiries from, um, from
sort of high growth companies, whether they need a referral
to an employment agreement, you know, to an employment partner
dealing with some IP license. I don't do work that

(09:55):
I don't specialize in, but I do, um, ride shotgun
on some of those calls and just make sure that
it it dovetails in with the broader strategy.

S1 (10:03):
And why do you say that about the Esop?

S2 (10:06):
I think esops are complicated in terms of law. There's
securities law. There's tax law. There's payroll and state based law.
And then there's the contract law. And I don't fully
understand why I think most people don't understand it. But
most people think I'll download something off the internet, or
I'll go to one of these providers that gives it

(10:27):
for free or as a bonus, and I just or
I can get it for less than $5,000, and I
don't want to spend more money if I can spend less.
So as a practitioner, I would make Ten-x is probably
too much, but a lot more money fixing broken esops for,
you know, scale up companies that realize they've massively underinvested in,
in that, um, aspect of their, um, you know, their,

(10:51):
their services provisions and they really need to fix it
because these people are critical to the business and they've
maybe underinvested in that. Um, I've heard of people talk
of technology debt where you don't get the best technology
as part of your stack, and then later you have
to pay more to, to undo it. I think the
same is true for law. And when there's a fundraising
on or a big sexy deal, like an M&A deal

(11:13):
or an IPO or a fundraising round, everyone's focused on it.
They're happy to get it done right. People have got
an appreciation of making sure that the terms are correct,
but maybe esops are seen as compliance and boring and,
you know, just spend as little on it as possible
and hopefully it works.

S1 (11:29):
And any horror stories you can share? I mean, you
can obviously change the names to protect the innocent, but
I mean, any, uh, bad legal agreements that you've seen
done that ended up with terrible consequences.

S2 (11:41):
Look, I won't name names, but, um, on the bad side,
I would say 8,090% are either not flawed drafting, but
just don't meet the tax concession that they're aimed for
and probably don't meet the securities laws concession. So a
bunch of staff have got hundreds of thousands or millions
of dollars worth of stock and at best, ambiguous tax consequences. Um,

(12:06):
but on the flip side, uh, when you get it right, um,
you know, I've worked on deals where we've structured esops
at the start and we've got the the best available
tax concession that's legitimately on offer to these startups and
dealt with IPOs where there's, you know, north of 300
million in the startup pool. And it's been, you know,

(12:26):
really rewarding to see an entire management team, um, be
rewarded for, you know, jumping into a really risky venture
early doors and having a life changing payoff. So when
it goes right, it can go really right. But when
it goes wrong, um, I guess the same is true
on the flip side. And I think it's a good, um,

(12:47):
sort of trend that we're seeing out of the US.
In the US, there are all these cohorts, um, you know,
you can start really early with the PayPal Mafia. And
even if you look at the number of startups that
have been funded out of the snowflake IPO, um, where
you've got not just tech founders, but, um, you know,
executives have gone into startups that have been, you know,

(13:10):
really successful. There's been a liquidity event and a huge
amount of that capital and expertise is recycled into the
into the startup ecosystem. So I think apart from just
I'm a lawyer and I, you know, generally like to
get things right. I think it's a really important part
of the ecosystem. And you have to give a shout
out to the Tech Council of Australia here. Um, that

(13:30):
did some successful lobbying in reforming the Reforming the way
that at least the securities laws dovetailed in with the
tax laws. I did, you know, bits and pieces of
them and then worked with ASIC on the exposure draft
of that legislation to basically make Esop far more widely
available to staff. And for those staff that did receive Esop,
far more generous in terms of the awards they've gotten.

(13:53):
So the frameworks there in terms of tax and securities law,
it's just now a matter of getting people to be
to take advantage of it.

S1 (14:00):
Yeah. Different question Stu. I mean, I've known you for
a few years now, but I don't think I've ever
asked you this. But why do you love startups?

S2 (14:09):
Yeah. Look, it's a question that I don't reflect on, um,
too much. And I thought you might ask that prior
to today. So I did some, um, reflection before before the,
the podcast. And I think I grew up with really
entrepreneurial parents. They weren't or maybe they were high-growth technology

(14:29):
companies when I was born, but but not not certainly
not the the volume of them. So my parents owned
a bunch of small businesses. They'd either start it themselves
or buy it and develop it and turn it around.
And that was just the environment that that I grew
up in. So from when I was born until when
I finished high school, that's what they did. Um, but
rather than encouraging me to go straight into a startup

(14:52):
or even the family business at the time, they they
sort of encouraged me to work smarter, not harder. Um,
maybe I've hit 50% of that, but time will tell.
So they really encouraged me just to go to university,
indulge as much as I can, um, at university, and
then take a take a career decision after that. So
I studied, um, some economics and finance and as well

(15:15):
as law and then did did a summer internship at
this firm and then did a summer internship at Macquarie Bank.
So I was always sort of had that, um, sitting
on the fence. Do I go into investment banking or
do I go into law? And when I took the
decision to, to go into law, I ended up focusing
on on corporate law and as a junior lawyer in
a global firm, when I was there, you pretty much

(15:36):
just did big ticket M&A or capital markets or IPOs
and rights issues, particularly in the wake of the global
financial crisis. I trained on on all that really exciting stuff.
And then as a number of lawyers, do you go
across to the UK? I did that a bit later
than most because my two year minimum experience sort of
expired in 2008, which was when London was firing, not hiring.

(16:00):
So I went a little bit after that. Um, and
when I was in London, I had the, the experience
of working on some, but also on a bunch of
strategic investment for General Electric into founder led medical device
and technology businesses. So that was injecting capital in return
for shares to fund businesses throughout Europe and then often

(16:21):
to partner with GE for distribution. But it was interfacing
with founder led technology companies. Um, every day. And you
had to be good on the tools for that, as
most lawyers do. But you also had to have respect
and empathy in the way that you communicated the deals
and negotiated, because these were much like technology companies like,

(16:44):
you know, you're dealing with. And these were highly technical,
highly proficient founders that had put 20, 30, 40 years
into their technology. So it was really like you were
sort of, you know, trying to invest in their baby. Uh,
and then I came back to Australia in 2015. Um,
and that was really when VC 2.0 was going. I

(17:05):
was a junior partner, which had no, no clients to
call my own. So I started to to work in
that sphere and to answer the question perhaps a little
bit more directly, what I loved about it was I
got to work for people, and I got to work
directly with, um, the founder and at a really important
time in their their business when they needed to raise capital,

(17:28):
and I had the great privilege of doing a number
of deals and they would only, you know, most founders
do a deal fundraising every one, 2 or 3 years,
depending on the size of the raise and the cash burn.
So I really had a sense of fulfillment that these
were people that really needed good advice and needed someone
good and hardworking and proficient in their corner. And then
when you get to the end of a deal and

(17:49):
they say, oh, gee, you know, I'm glad I didn't,
you know, do that without you or I was so
glad to have you by your side. It's it's a
really fulfilling, you know, role to perform and look, other
clients are also great, but often they're well resourced. They
may have an internal legal team. You're providing specialist skills

(18:10):
or additional resource to complete a large transaction. But I
think when you're acting for high growth technology companies that
are founder led, you can hang up the boots at
the end of the day and thought, look, you know,
I've made a big difference to the transaction and hopefully
a small positive difference to the trajectory of this, this company.

(18:31):
And if you've only got a relatively short time on
this planet and a relatively short time to in your
professional life, I think you want to be doing it
to assist people that are building companies to make a
better tomorrow, which again, which is why our focus is
on high growth technology companies with a with a perhaps
a over indexation on energy transition.

S1 (18:50):
You know, but the reality is and you've seen this,
especially with ten years of working with these people, there's
a lot of rough with the smooth. I mean, like
the startup journey can be fantastic, right? Hopefully more time
than not. But also it can be brutal. I mean,
you must have seen funding deals fall apart in the
last minute and, you know, the person's house or marriage
or whatever is on the line because of it. I mean,

(19:11):
any reflections on on the brutality of startup life?

S2 (19:15):
I think the brutality of startup life for founders, um,
is largely an untold story. There's lots of really good
press about. IPOs and sales and exits and funding rounds
and new products. And that's great. It should be celebrated.
It should be reported on. And it's good news, but I.
I've lost count of the times I've been sitting with

(19:36):
a founder. Just hopefully. Getting a deal over the line
and just saying to them people wouldn't believe. How hard
this was if you told them, if you wrote this
as a book. People would just think it was fiction. Um,
and the amount of risk that these people take, the
amount of energy that goes into it, the stress that
comes with the risk and the energy putting into it,

(19:58):
and they're risking their career. They're risking sort of their,
their family's livelihood. And I think when we went through
probably the first cycle of venture capital, there was a
lot of good intention, there was a lot of funding
out there, and a lot of really smart people moved
in to the industry for all the right reasons. Um,
but then I think some of the harsh realities of
third party financing hit home when some tougher decisions were made.

(20:22):
And that's sort of when, um, when it came home
to roost that, you know, not every startup will have
a happy ending, but, um, I think it's a great
privilege to to work and be in the corner of
some of these founders and say, look, don't don't worry
about this. There's four different ways we can cut it.
Let's go and try. And, you know, some feedback I've

(20:42):
had over the years is like, we don't get why
you're so invested in this process. You're sort of a
third party service provider. But for for me and the team,
we really feel, um, that stress and that angst, um,
you know, and try to move mountains to, to get
the right result.

S1 (20:58):
Yeah. No, I'm seeing here I haven't had many lawyers
in the podcast. Now, that's maybe not true because a
bunch of the VCs are lawyers. And that's a separate
question from why so many lawyers become VCs. But one
of the few lawyers that has been on as a
lawyer was Peter Dunn from HSF Herbert Smith Freehills. Um,
And I know you did some homework at the weekend

(21:20):
and listen to that. So I mean, any reflections on that.
And Peter, I mean, you used to work together and
you're the second lawyer in the show. So, you know,
there's a question in there, but just some maybe reflections
and lack of lawyers in the show and Peter Dunn.

S2 (21:32):
Yeah, yeah. Look, um, Peter would hate me saying this,
but to the extent to which, uh, lawyers can be legends,
he's definitely one of them, particularly in in venture capital
in Australia. Um, we didn't work together as such at
the same firm. Um, Peter, like me, did a few
years in London and Peter, like me, did those two
years at Ashurst prior to, um, when the legacy firm

(21:56):
of Ashurst, Blake, Dawson, Waldron merged with Asher. So we
were different firms at the time, and, um, Peter's got
a few years on me. So he was, um, acting for, um,
Atlassian and the founders there, and then then their successful
family offices while I was still over in London when
I came back, um, I, you know, made an attempt

(22:17):
to to start in this industry in 2015 and had
the good fortune of being on the other side of
Peter on a number of deals. Uh, it was very
easy to, to like Peter. There's a lot of good
lawyers in this country, like Australia, produces a huge number
of excellent lawyers, and unfortunately, are not an equal amount

(22:38):
of fantastic people within that same cohort. So I think
what one of the reasons that that Peter is so good,
in addition to being technically, um, sound, is he's just
a terrific person. He's good to deal with, with clients.
He's good to deal with from the other side. People
like him almost universally. I'm not aware of a an
outlier there, and I certainly did. And he was very

(23:00):
good to me to deal with as a junior partner.
When there were conflicts that arose. He'd he'd refer them
to me because I think he knew there'd be consistency on,
on the other side. So I, you know, oh, no
small amount of the success that I've had in the
last decade of practicing adventure to him, and he's just
been a really good exemplar, I think, for a number

(23:22):
of other practitioners in the space.

S1 (23:23):
Yeah, great. I mean, how big is the pool of
good lawyers who can do sort of start up transactions
in Australia? I mean, is it a dozen? Is it 20?
You don't have to name them, obviously. Apart from. No.
Look I think and Peter Dunn.

S2 (23:36):
No. Look. And I think Peter's Peter's now, um, we
call it a promotion. I think I need to look
up LinkedIn for his official title. I think he's I.

S1 (23:45):
Think general counsel.

S2 (23:46):
Is general counsel and head of corporate development at Safetyculture.
I think I think it's it's impressive.

S1 (23:52):
Whatever it was a couple of years ago, I think
it jumped out.

S2 (23:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I um, I, you know, in theme
with him being a terrifically good bloke, he invited me
into the offices and showed me around and had lunch. Nice.
Last month. So that was, that was good. But in
terms of the the lawyers in Australia, look, there's look,
there's lots of really good lawyers. But I think to
answer a slightly different question how many lawyers are there
in Australia that are focused on venture and have a

(24:18):
full time practice in it? I would say, um, there's
probably fewer than half a dozen. Um, really? Yeah. Yeah. So, um.

S1 (24:28):
How many of them are in Sydney?

S2 (24:31):
There's, there's two firms in Sydney and then one in
Sydney and Melbourne. So I think, you know, um, 5.

S1 (24:36):
Or 6.

S2 (24:37):
Roughly. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, we practice, you know, um,
all over the place. So there's, um, Simon and Dan
at Kendall Gates, who are also just terrifically good people. Um,
there's Avery Gilbert and Tobin, who started up doing some
work on the investment side, and there's Elizabeth and Claire, um,
at Freehills, which is, which is Peter's old firm, and

(24:57):
they've all got, um, they're all great practitioners, all good people,
all practicing full time. But then after after that, it
kind of it's it's it's varied.

S1 (25:16):
Let's take a bit more of a macro position. Like
when the climate we're just coming to the end of 2024,
if you're listening to this later and it's been a
tough few years, I mean, there has been a lack
of liquidity. The economic climate has been hard. Inflation has
been high. Interest rates are high. There's been some geopolitical risks.
There's been some US election uncertainty. I mean, most a

(25:37):
lot of that I mean the US election is kind
of at least not uncertain. We're not going to have
an insurrection, I don't think, in January. I mean, how
are you and the firm thinking about the next year
or two from that macroeconomic perspective?

S2 (25:52):
Look, I think I think we're hopeful and I can't
speak universally for the firm, but at least from a
macro Australian perspective, I'd be optimistic that we're through some
of the worst of it. Um, you know, interest rates
now at least seem to be stabilizing. If you look
at the forward yield curve, you know the math will

(26:14):
tell you there's more chance of an interest rate drop, um,
than an increase, which would provide some relief and perhaps, um,
some optimism, I think, for the Australian startup ecosystem. What
I would look to as well and cut through benches
do an outstanding job of this. And there's some other

(26:35):
data out there as well is that there's I think,
you know, probably since 2015, there's been a larger alternatives allocation, um,
from super and high net wealth into venture funding. Um,
so previously I think alternatives was private equity and some

(26:56):
infrastructure asset funds, and there's been an increasing amount of
capital flowing into venture as part of that alternatives allocation.
And so long as there's funding flowing into the top
of the funnel of the the venture capital cycle. Then
there will still be venture capital funds out there that
are well funded. Those venture capital funds will work day

(27:18):
and night to find good opportunities, and if there's funding
for good opportunities, there will still be an incentive for
the individual to go out there and take a punt
to to leave their high profile job and take the
plunge into starting a startup. So I think there's a
robustness to the Australian ecosystem from that perspective, because they're
still sizable capital flowing into the top of the funnel.

(27:42):
Perhaps a more micro level, I think obviously, you know,
2022 was just brutal, like really, really tough year. I
think 2023, we started to see that stabilise. Q4 2023
I think I did half a dozen rounds of more
than 25 million just off the top of my head.
And then we're at now the back end of 2024.

(28:04):
And we're still we're seeing, you know, doing 3 or
4 rounds with us investors leading and another 3 or
4 with US investors participating. I'm seeing Co-sell. So co-sell
co-investment from some of the super funds with, um, some
of the larger venture funds. A good diversity of of
funding across the spectrum. So still working on a bunch

(28:26):
of pre-seed rounds of one and 2 million. Still working
on a bunch of seed rounds. But we are still
seeing we are now seeing founders come out doing series A,
series B rounds of 20 to 50 million, where 18
months ago, the markets were so low that no rational
founder would put their head out and raise such a
large amount of capital when valuations were so depressed. To

(28:47):
the extent to which listed capital markets are a leading
indicator of private market valuations. We're seeing, you know, obviously
the the rebound of tech valuations in the US and
Australia since 2022. So where that gets me is I think,
you know, perhaps there was a little bit too much
heat in the market in 2122. Really, it came off

(29:09):
a lot. 23 was rebalancing. And, you know, my take
would be 2024 seems to have been reverted. So there's
good funding conditions out there for good companies. The eco
system is getting older. So there are some genuine scale
up companies and there's good competition for those. And are you.

S1 (29:26):
Getting any mandates or any potential mandates for IPO work.

S2 (29:31):
Not not a huge amount. There, there. There's a number
of IPOs in the pipeline. The majority of those have
been backed up and are not high growth technology companies.
The last IPO I worked on that met that criteria, um,
was the judo bank IPO, which was sort of, I
guess Q3, Q4 2021. Right.

S1 (29:54):
Yeah. God, that feels like a long time ago, doesn't it?

S2 (29:57):
Yeah. It was interesting doing a, you know what, $2.6
$6 billion IPO from lockdown with, you know, for joint
lead managers with, you know, umpteenth zoom and and teams
call with the Brady Bunch cubes there.

S1 (30:09):
Yeah. And what about secondaries. I mean can we be
talking about that as a trend. I mean we've seen
a little bit more activity I suppose recently, but. Yeah.
How much are you seeing that secondaries world.

S2 (30:21):
Uh, I would say. Most of the deals I'm doing
north of $20 million have a small secondary component. So
I think.

S1 (30:31):
The mostly for the founder.

S2 (30:33):
Mostly for the founder. Angels. Yeah, mostly for the founders. Um,
and and sometimes for the angels. I'm doing rounds with
all of those at the moment. And what we're seeing
is some of the angels are coming up to the
end of their, um, ten, ten year early stage innovation
concession period, which is the the CGT ten year holiday. Um,

(30:55):
so we are seeing some angels agitate for that.

S1 (30:57):
So if you don't sell within that ten years, then
it's null and void. Is that right?

S2 (31:02):
No. I think if you sell within that ten years,
you've got the holiday. I'm not a tax expert, but
my casual understanding is that you just look and reset
the cost base of the ten years. So if you
bought a share ten years ago for a dollar, and
then today it's worth $10 and your ten year holiday expires,
then the value of that share is taken to $10.
And if you sold it for $12, then your capital

(31:23):
gain would be two, not 11. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
That sounds. But do do do seek tax advice from
your own qualified practitioner, not some bootleg corporate lawyer.

S1 (31:33):
Yeah. Uh, and the appropriateness. I mean, like, in the
old days, people were, you know, funders or new funders
in particular were kind of thought giving away secondaries to
founders was not a good thing to do. I mean,
I'm certainly not of that opinion, but, you know, this
is maybe an opinion piece, but I mean, do you
think taking money off the table is the right thing
to do for a later stage founder?

S2 (31:55):
I think taking some money off the off the table, um, is,
you know, perfectly defensible for a founder. Um, it's usually coming,
goodness me, sort of five, six, seven years into the
journey for the vast preponderance of the ones I'm seeing,
it's 1 or $2 million, which is, I don't know
what the median house price in Sydney is, but it's

(32:16):
not like they're buying an island and playing golf three
days a week. It's probably that they've been on a
drastically below market, um, salary for half a decade. And
they're taking, you know, a million, million and a half,
maybe $2 million off the table to retire debt on
their primary residence or buy a house. By now, they

(32:38):
might have a couple of kids that they're looking for,
a second or third bedroom and, you know, a small backyard.
It's it's I haven't seen anyone, you know, take off
retirement level money. And when I see the support of
the venture community. By that I mean the the venture
capital investors. They're broadly supportive of that. So the company's

(33:00):
gone from nothing to being worth $100 million or more.
And the founders are taking, you know, 1 or $2
million off the table each after, you know, four or
5 or 6 years. Um, I think that's just fine.
And it's always nice when the rounds oversubscribed and the
company's got enough money and there's investors wanting more money
than it's available. Yeah. So providing some liquidity to the

(33:21):
founders and to the early stage investors and and potentially, um,
the Esop that's past its vesting and the company's steady state. So,
you know, I think Canva is obviously perhaps in its
own class in terms of the, the volume of secondaries
we're seeing coming out of that. But I'm sort of
talking more about series A and series B companies in
this context.

S1 (33:42):
Uh, stew, being a lawyer has got, you know, it's
a reputation for working crazy long hours. And I'm sure
you would have grown up in especially in London. Uh,
you know, when you were there. It was hard, I'm sure.
And you, I'm sure, have pulled. You've probably lost count
of the number of all nighters. You've you've had to
stay up. Is that still the case or is, uh,

(34:03):
you know, because a super tired lawyer is probably not
an effective lawyer, which is why you do your work
first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep. Like,
how are working practices now versus how they were when
you were a junior lawyer?

S2 (34:15):
Yeah. Look, I still think it's an issue that the
industry grapples with. I think one of the benefits of
working in a venture capital practice is it tends not
to be that all consuming M&A deal that would suck
20 hours out of every team member's day. The volume
of work that goes into your traditional Seed series A,

(34:37):
series B fundraise, just in terms of the sheer hours
is less, um, when it gets difficult, which it does sometimes,
is when you've got a number of deals all on
roughly the same timeline, for example, coming up and up
and the founder wants to close for Christmas. Which is.
Which is apt for the last week of November. But
to give a real life snapshot of it, I think

(35:01):
for for our team, I would like to say three
nights a week, I'd love for the team to be
out of the office before 630. Now that that won't
be three nights a week like clockwork. You know, every
week of the year. Some weeks it'll be a bunch
of late nights, and then some weeks there'll be no,
no late nights. But I entirely agree with the sentiment
that to to do your best work, you need a

(35:22):
good night's sleep and you need not to be doing
it super late at night. But I also think there's
been a big shift, um, in generations and generational expectations
about what people want from their career. I think the
vast majority of corporate lawyers that joined the firm when
I did wanted to work their guts out and become partner.
And now, I would say the majority of graduates into

(35:44):
top tier law firms want to come to the firm,
work hard, get some good expertise, train with some good
some good lawyers, get some exposure to interesting work, and
then make an assessment of what's right for them. I
don't think there's that same, um, cohort of people that
just want to do whatever it takes, you know, 10
to 15 years to make partner and then do do
the work after that. I mean, that.

S1 (36:04):
Sounds from the outside, healthy. Is that true? Or would
you rather see them come in and say, I want
to be a partner?

S2 (36:11):
Oh, look, I think I think there's, there's there's pros
and cons to that. I don't think it's a, it's
a later messier, um, either way. But I do think
that the way that technology will be affecting the legal industry,
you know, in the next, you know, three, five, ten
years will mean there'll be massive efficiencies, which will hopefully
lead to better cost outcomes for clients, but also less, um,

(36:35):
boring work for, for junior lawyers and means they can
do it far more effectively.

S1 (36:39):
Yeah, I mean, that's just throwing up the thought bubble. Uh,
in fact, this would have been probably the only podcast
in the last three years that hadn't asked about AI.
But I should ask it now. You've touched on it
like how are you? And how have you seen other
major law firms grappling with AI and how are you
using it?

S2 (36:56):
Yeah, I think from the outset, as a macro industry comment,
I think the legal industry has been far less affected, um,
than than other industries have. But that is not to
in any way suggest that we'll be somehow immune. So
we've rolled out AI platforms. Now, if you read Ashurst

(37:16):
Standard Terms and Conditions, which is a riveting read, there's
in big, bold, highlighted terms that we are authorized, um,
to use AI tools and applications in part of the
delivery of the services to you. So we are using
that as a firm, but we've been using it for
when it wasn't called AI for, for, for, for many,

(37:38):
many years. Whether it's review of documents, chronologies, um, automated diligence, uh,
automated document production, all kinds of things like that. Um,
but I think now we're, you know, with the advent
of ChatGPT and generative AI and I've seen, you know, um,
legal services provided, I think that's got the capacity to say, right,

(38:00):
get me a really good first draft of something that
maybe would have taken someone 2 or 3 days almost instantly.
So we'll be looking more at checking the final work
and training ourselves on the input to the tools. And
I think for perhaps, um, law firms that are corporate
law firms that play in a different sort of segment
of the market, they'll be able to roll out, you know, really, really,

(38:23):
really good quality, cost efficient services for people that don't
demand the same amount of lawyer time advice and advisory work. So,
you know, if I had a crystal ball, maybe I'd
say in a decade, the the role of a corporate
lawyer or a venture capital lawyer will be providing the
strategic advice, the deal structuring and then confirming the output

(38:44):
of whatever's generating it, whether it be a human or
I or I, with the assistance of a human, will be,
you know, far more, um, high value relationship advisory work
and far, far fewer hours on the document production side
of things.

S1 (39:01):
Uh, Stu, I think you said either today or when
we had lunch the other day, that you tend to
act for the founders more than you do for the investors.
Is that deliberate? Do you prefer founders to the investors?
Like who? Yeah. Which one gives you more of a buzz?

S2 (39:17):
Oh, look, I you know, it's like asking a parent
which of their children they prefer. Um, but no, look,
I think I think my practice. I should probably have
better numbers on this, but I would say it's probably
60 to 70% founder work. And then, uh, the remainder
investor work, the investor work is pretty evenly split between, uh,
offshore venture funds, domestic venture funds and corporate venture capital Clients. Um,

(39:42):
so I think, look, just transparently, honestly, acting for a
founder is more fulfilling on a human level. Investors are great, right?
They're well resourced. They're doing this day in, day out.
They know what their expectations are. Many of them now
have excellent, um, in-house lawyers that provide the instruction and,
you know, go through the decision making process. So I

(40:04):
like to think of them as well oiled machines who
you're providing expertise and, and, and resource to, um, which
is quite different to acting on the founder side of
the table where, you know, they don't have an in-house counsel,
they don't have a well oiled machine. This isn't the
fourth deal they're doing this month. This is the one
deal they're doing this in this two year period. So

(40:26):
in that sense, um, on a personal level, it's, um,
it's quite fulfilling, particularly when in every, every deal has
its bumps and nuances and, and issues to, to navigate.
But when you're on a deal, that's really important. Maybe
the company's really critically in need of the funding. Sometimes
when the company is critically in need of the funding,

(40:47):
the financiers are aware of that pressure. And, you know,
having someone that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the
founder and help them navigate through the bumps and the
potential issues. At the end of that, you get a
sign of, oh, wow, that was touch and go there
for a while. I'm so glad that we we got
through it. Um, is is more rewarding on a personal

(41:09):
level than, um, than, you know, doing the deal of
the year for some other great fund that, you know,
probably would have been able to do the deal just
as well without you. But I think when you're on
the founder side, you can feel like you've contributed a
little bit more.

S1 (41:23):
Uh, right. I'm getting to the end of my questions here, Stu.
So let me ask. This might be the last one. Um,
but you've been a lawyer for a number of years. Uh,
and working in this, I guess, high growth founder venture
space for at least ten years now, you know, so
you've seen a lot. You've seen great deals, bad deals,
great founders, maybe not so good founders. Any advice from

(41:47):
all that pattern matching? If we've got a listener here
who is about to embark on their startup journey, any
advice to them, either with a legal lens on it
or not, or just with a Stu Dillard lens?

S2 (41:58):
No. Look, I think the advice that I would give
and what I see, um, be most successful are founders
that can build a really good team right there, the
kind of leaders that are not only brilliant, but they
engender this sense from their team of purpose, and they

(42:20):
just want to do their best for that founder, for
that business. Because every business grows to a stage where
it's just impossible for the founder to to be everywhere.
And I think the, the really wonderful founders I've seen
are the ones that can communicate their message and just
deal with individuals, even on a one on one basis,

(42:42):
rather than some big town hall meeting where there's, you know,
500 people banging on the desk. But just to engender
a sense of loyalty and purpose and work ethic. And
when you see that in practice, you find yourself going, oh,
I want to do my best for this, for this person.
I really want to make sure they they get a
good result. So, you know, as a, as a lawyer

(43:03):
and I've got a small team, I practice for a
decade and all I really focused on was being the
best lawyer I could be, knowing all the law I
could be and knowing sort of all the, the tricks
in the, the legal toolbox. And it was something I
massively under-invested in and I definitely don't have that inherent skill.
But as I've worked with some really successful founders, you

(43:23):
can see the way they interact with people. They've obviously
they've often got a really high level of empathy. It's
often genuine. Yeah. Um, and I think if, if people
focus on that, not only the milestone, the growth rate,
the success, the product market fit, all those things that
are undeniably important. But if you spend some time on

(43:45):
team selection and then watering the garden, that is your team,
I think that's sort of the thing that I've seen, um,
to be the biggest hallmark of success.

S1 (43:54):
Yeah, I lied to you. I've got one more question
I forgot to answer earlier. Azure sponsors a few things.
So Apple is one of them, uh, which used to
be called Heads Over Heels. So it's basically a way
to to help women network better get them more connected. Um,
why why is that a passion project? Is that, uh,

(44:14):
I mean, gender in tech is hard. I don't know
whether it's the same in law. So, I mean, where's
the gender passion coming from?

S2 (44:21):
Yeah. Look, I think it's a thing that the, the
firms are really passionate about for many years. And I'll
pay homage to our global CEO Paul Jenkins, who when,
when I raised this with him. Um, he was just
all about it. He's, um, he's a member of Committed
to Change, which is a collection of CEOs that are
across industries that are, um, committed to to rebalancing the

(44:45):
gender imbalance that exists in so many industries and laws. Definitely, um,
not immune from that. So it's a big it's a
big passion project for the firm, for Paul and for me.
So when we had the opportunity to partner with them
in a meaningful way, we did. And I think the
the work in which they do and the way they target, um,

(45:05):
the identification that a number of female founders, you know,
don't have the same network and they don't have that same, um,
community around them. And for people to come together for
us to, to do that, to contribute, but for us
to expand our networks to it, because law firms are
good connectors. We've got clients and contacts across industry, often
at quite a senior level. It just made complete sense

(45:27):
to us, um, to, to partner with them on, on
the good work they do. Yeah.

S1 (45:32):
Yeah. And you've also partnered with innovation Bay. I mean,
it's not the reason you're on the show. We had
you anyway. But I mean, you came along to our
event in Darwin. You've been enthusiastic. I guess you've been
on the sidelines for a little bit, but now you're
inside the tent. Any observations on on us. This sounds
like a bit of a Dorothy Dixer, but, um. Yeah.

(45:52):
What's your observation in our community?

S2 (45:54):
Yeah. Look, I think I had the good fortune of
going away, um, with the founder cohort, and I can
honestly say it's the least corporate, um, networking, sponsorship, community
based event that I've ever been to. Often it's in a,
you know, a law firm office with canopies and, you know,
sparkling water and chardonnay and the rest of it. So

(46:15):
to go out to, to Katherine Gorge and to effectively
exhale for a couple of days and, um, and be
part of that was pretty special. I felt fairly apprehensive
going as as a corporate lawyer. As a corporate partner,
I'm acutely aware that, you know, while I might, you know,
spend some time down in the trenches helping them out

(46:37):
on a fundraise, I haven't, you know, given up my job,
put my family's livelihood on the line. I've been supporting
some founders, but I haven't dealt with the the stress
and the anxiety that it is. So going into that,
I was apprehensive that it's like, what's this corporate lawyer
doing here? He wouldn't have any appreciation of what it is.
So for the first little while, I just sort of

(46:59):
kept to myself and remembered my grandfather's advice that you've
got two ears and one mouth and try to use
them in that same proportion. Um, but after, um, a
little while, you know, you sort of get to hear
people's stories. And for me, it was a fair bit
of listening and then, um, interact with people on a
more human level. And I think that's the for me, um,

(47:20):
that's the key distinguishing, um, feature of innovation Bay. I mean,
there's a good cohort of people. There's, you know, probably
some corporate benefit and deals that get done. But I
think it genuinely tries to eschew that and say, like,
let's just leave the ego and the the job at
the door and try to actually figure out why we're

(47:41):
here and meet some good people. And if good things
come from that, that's great. But that's not the main reason.

S1 (47:45):
It's good to hear. I mean, our philosophy is that
you're before you're a founder, an investor or a lawyer.
You're a human, you know? So bring the best humans
together and get them to learn from each other. And,
you know, that's if we're all better humans. It's a
better society.

S2 (47:57):
Yeah. And I think, look, the vast, vast preponderance of
people that are in the Australian venture community, whether it's
a corporate, a fund or a founder, I, I think
their heart is in the, in the most part for
the right place. Some people won't get along. There's going
to be not just altogether bad actors, but some people

(48:19):
do the wrong thing, you know, different times. But in
the overwhelming majority of cases. I think, you know, the
people in, in this part of the world practicing in
this space have have got their heart in the right place. Yeah.

S1 (48:32):
All right, look, that's, uh, that's the end of our
formal part, Stu. So thank you. Uh, that was great.
I loved hearing that story and some of your insights. Uh,
quick fire round. So I know you were feverishly writing
these down before we started. So can you give us
a glimpse into your favorite book?

S2 (48:49):
Okay. I'll go two. Okay. Fiction. Fiction.

S1 (48:52):
Non fiction. Great.

S2 (48:53):
Love it. Um, and maybe that'll cut down on the back, but, um,
the Goldfinch for fiction. I think that's just a beautifully
written book. Please don't watch the movie. Read the book.
It's one that that will engross you and, um, take you.

S1 (49:05):
Is that recent.

S2 (49:05):
Book? No, no, I think it was published maybe a
decade ago. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Yeah, she's a brilliant,
brilliant writer. Um, and then one of the best sort
of nonfiction I've read recently, and I do read mainly non-fiction.
Being a lawyer, I've got a personality disorder, obviously, but, um,
the I think the book is called Time to Breathe
by Bill Mitchell. Bill Mitchell's a practicing psychologist in the

(49:28):
City of London, and it's a book, um, around a
whole range of techniques to to manage your energy and
empathy and stress levels through the day. And there's some
really practical tips, like maybe not taking meetings between 8
and 11, working out when you're most productive, working out
when you need some downtime to sort of treat yourself
in the best way so you can be, you know,

(49:48):
at the the highest level of energy throughout the day
for the people around you. Yeah.

S1 (49:52):
Love it. Uh, what about podcast? Do you listen to
any podcasts?

S2 (49:56):
I'm a sucker for Australian true crime. Um, um. Story.
So the the teacher's pet that the Australian put out. Um,
the sure thing about the insider trading and the Department
of Treasury with the AFR and, um, liar, liar, um,
that the age put out. I, I know I'm a
sucker for those things.

S1 (50:14):
So these are like fixed width if you like almost
documentary series.

S2 (50:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're sort of like, I don't know,
6 to 8 episodes. Um. Um, there was one called
Bad Blood on Theranos.

S1 (50:27):
Oh, yeah, I remember that one. That was.

S2 (50:29):
Great. Similar, uh, kind of thing. There was a really
the really, really famous one that maybe wasn't Murder Mystery,
which was one of the first serial podcasts, um, um,
about an artist that was accused of murder and then
got convicted and they, they picked apart the, um, the
case on that.

S1 (50:46):
So that's good. I think I've got to get into
those more serialized ones. I mean, I just tend to
find the ones of, you know, people that you like,
and they do it every week. And, you know, whether
it's The Economist or HARDtalk from the BBC, I mean,
there's some good ones like that. But yeah, I probably
do need to try the serialized ones a bit more.
I'll try that one. Thank you. Um, do you have
a favorite news source? I do.

S2 (51:05):
I I've been waking up to Radio National since, you know,
as long as I can remember. There was a brief
time where I, um. I cheated on my loyalty to
Radio National when I lived in London and woke up
to to BBC one or. or BBC London. Um. But no. Look,
I just love Radio National. I think it's a good
sort of snapshot of what's going on in the country. Um,
every morning.

S1 (51:26):
You're a radio one listener. I have pegged you for
radio four, but I guess you were younger and funkier
in London. Is that right? It's hard.

S2 (51:31):
To believe. Yeah, yeah, it's hard to believe. No, no, but, um, I.

S1 (51:34):
Was always really. I was, like, the complete nerd. I
only listened to radio three and four.

S2 (51:38):
Well, I mean, like, back in university, I did have
a DJ set on community radio back then. You could
you could download Pete Tong's, uh, weekly, weekly, um, two
hour session from, you know, whether it was sort of
the DJs that were headlining Creamfields or Paul Oakenfold did
a brilliant one, and then it sort of, um, went
from strength to strength, er and sort of there's some

(52:00):
great CDs like, um, back to mine that are sort
of artists that put together compilations of the kind of
tracks they'd play on if they had an after party
and they invited everyone back to theirs, or Fabric Live,
which is a great, um, club in central London, had
sort of you know, periodic CDs by the, the DJs
that headlined their event.

S1 (52:19):
You know, I think you're the first guest in 200
that suggested a radio show as a news source. So
that's that's good. I love it. Yeah. Uh, do you
have a favorite tech CEO?

S2 (52:29):
No, I can't, I can't, I can't I can't single
out one of the many hundred. Um, I've acted for
I've sort of.

S1 (52:35):
There's ones you haven't acted for then.

S2 (52:39):
Oh, look, it's, um. It's difficult to say.

S1 (52:43):
Do you like Elon?

S2 (52:44):
Look, I read, I read, I read his, um, his, um,
book or Isaac Isaacson's book, rather, um, earlier in the year.
And he's definitely got a unique cluster of personality traits
developed by a unique cluster of early childhood, um, experiences. But,
I mean, like, I think the, the safe bet in
terms of, um, sort of the some of the founders

(53:06):
in Australia, um, and I, I don't have the pleasure
of acting for them. Um, the founders of Canva, I think, um,
there's been a lot written about them. In fact, I
think the, the Australian financial press must have some contract
that they have to write at least one newspaper article
every week about how our funds mark to market their stock,
or there might be a secondary or they're bought and

(53:27):
sold or something. But, um, I think the way in
which they've conducted their business, the success of their business,
the way they've treated their people, and, you know, I
mentioned earlier, um, the way that the extreme wealth generation
that's come from some of those really successful company has, um,
fed back into the ecosystem, I think puts a pretty

(53:47):
bright light on, on the Australian, um, ecosystem. And long
may that continue.

S1 (53:52):
Yeah. No, that's, uh yeah, that's a great call out.
We've had a few for Canberra. That's a popular one. Uh,
what about app? Do you have a favorite app in
your phone?

S2 (54:00):
I do, I, I don't have any social media on
my phone. I deleted that a little while ago because
I found that, you know, until I read the works
of Marcel Proust, I probably don't have time for those. Um,
but the one not time wasting app, but the one
app that I do sort of use for filler times
is the New York Times games app. So I do
try to do the crossword, the hard sudoku, and then

(54:21):
the the easier ones and Wordle. So, you know, that's
something that gets a fair bit of run on the
the iPhone usage time. That's good.

S1 (54:28):
Now what about like the opposite of that then is
a productivity tool. Once you've wasted all that time and
the puzzles like how do you stay efficient?

S2 (54:35):
Well, to be efficient I'll refer you to my first
answer with Time to Breathe by Bill Mitchell. That's a
really excellent practical book. The other thing that's not an app,
but a productivity tool, which is an obvious one, is exercise. Like,
I just need to do exercise every morning. I find
that at the back end of the day, it means
I have no trouble falling asleep and I feel like
I'm looking after myself. Then it can tend to put

(54:57):
things in perspective, get the, um, you know, get the
endorphins up and I'll give a shout out to. I mean,
a big passion of mine is sort of medicine 3.0.
You mentioned podcasting. Huberman, you know, Peter Attia, David Sinclair,
fantastic Australian at Harvard. Um, some of the guys at
Evo Lab, which I've just signed on to, um, as
a user, are doing some fantastic, groundbreaking work with bringing, um,

(55:23):
all that, you know, refereed journal studies into a very,
very practical application. And they're providing it as a service
in Australia. So I am just blown away, um, by
Sam and the team at Evo Lab, and I think
they're fantastic.

S1 (55:36):
Great TV show. Do you watch tele?

S2 (55:39):
This is the easiest.

S1 (55:40):
Oh, yeah.

S2 (55:41):
The easiest one. Like suits. Yeah. No, I know I
look West Wing. If I could just watch West Wing,
you know, at the beginning of every year and watch
all seven seasons. And you said you weren't allowed to
watch any other television. I'd be a happy camper. I
can't think of the my second favorite TV show. So
I'm a little bit of a, um, a Aaron Sorkin tragic.

(56:01):
He's he's he's written some other, um, excellent TV shows,
but that's, uh, that was a very easy one for me. Yeah.

S1 (56:06):
That's great. All right, last question. Uh, if you were
asked to do a Ted talk, what would you do
it on?

S2 (56:11):
I feel uniquely unqualified to to give, uh, to give
anything exciting, um, about this, but I it would have
to be, um, on sort of some of the highs
and lows and the founder journeys, um, you know, if
I could get consent from all the founders to tell
some of the, you know, highs and lows of their stories, um,

(56:32):
on the, you know, the ups and downs of venture
capital fundraising. Um, I think that would be one thing
that I'd have some, some good insights on.

S1 (56:39):
All right. Stu. So if anyone wants to find out
more about you or Ashurst or, um, you know, where
can they find you?

S2 (56:45):
Sure. I think, uh, just Google Stuart Ashurst. It's got my.
It's got the firm. The firm website there. Shoot me
an email and, um, we'll come back to you as
quickly as possible.

S1 (56:55):
Yeah. Love it. Uh, Stu. Thank you. Appreciate your time.
Thanks for the office as a studio. And, uh. Yeah. Thanks, everyone,
for listening. Thank you.