00:29:55 · Georgie Healy, Daniel Palmer, Adam Miller, Sachin
[00:29:55] S4: Why not you? [00:29:56] S3: I drew a longer straw. Yeah, think it's an undeniable reality, it's the epicentre of a lot of these markets. Think it's pretty simple really, and I don't think it has anything to do with Australians being more lazy or anything like that. I think definitely, and like probably one of the reasons why we're keeping a lot of our product team here, and I speak to a lot of founders who say the same thing is that one of the benefits of being here is that you're not quite as deep in the hype cycle. I think it's a bit slightly less intense and probably a good way here in that you do, I think have more chance to focus on what matters and the real problems and the real customers as you mentioned. And get slightly less caught up in the big AI event that happens every second day. Who's funding who? Who's funding who? What like, oh that guy that was sitting next to you, or your neighbor, she's just raised $50,000,000 so you [00:30:59] S5: see what we [00:30:59] S3: can put it on. I think that's a benefit in some ways, and I think maybe what's often perceived as laziness is more just, okay we're a bit out of that hype cycle, I think we can be a bit, in general, a bit more straightforward and focused with our energy. [00:31:20] S2: I think also in the spirit of oakiness, something that me and Adam talk to [00:31:25] S3: a lot of
00:31:25 · Daniel Palmer, Sachin, Adam Miller
[00:31:25] S3: a lot of [00:31:25] S2: our friends about behind closed doors is just two reasons for products in engineering Australia also is that one, R and D tax grant, very, very helpful for engineering teams here. But two, it's like, if you want to compete the tower in San Francisco, you're often paying more than $1,000,000 a year now. For most Australian companies, that's half their seed route. [00:31:44] S5: Your policy is about $100,000,000 offers, which is just not... And the [00:31:48] S2: reality is, the best engineers have maybe 15 interesting companies they can work at in Australia. In SF, they can go work at OpenAI. Or they can go to work on cutting edge research, which for a lot of them is super interesting.
00:31:48 · Sachin, Michelle Gilmore, Adam Miller
[00:31:48] S2: reality is, the best engineers have maybe 15 interesting companies they can work at in Australia. In SF, they can go work at OpenAI. Or they can go to work on cutting edge research, which for a lot of them is super interesting. [00:32:01] S1: Yeah, I'm not sure that SF will continue to be the only place. I I think that we're going to see other pathways and that there's really interesting fodder in places like South Korea and Japan. And India is a very interesting emerging market. As a founder, you know, we just... We did our, our pre seed round here with Blackbird. You know, I am definitely not saying SF's the place, nor am I necessarily saying America is a place that we need to extend into. And we actually have more customers via organic growth in places like Japan and South Korea Interesting. Indonesia, Vietnam, India. We've got a really interesting project going on in India at the moment, Sri Lanka. So I I think that the the the issue with the SF hype cycle is that it makes people think there's only a one way to do that. And, obviously, VCs love that because it's predictable, and there's a there's a community there that supports that kind of experience. But I do think that, there's going to be a leveling out and a flattening of that and that there's other interesting places to explore, other markets to tap into. And with AI, we have more ability to do that and tap into talent that's not gonna get paid a million dollars because they can. [00:33:35] S5: Yep.
00:33:35 · Adam Miller, Michelle Gilmore
[00:33:35] S5: Yep. [00:33:36] S1: The great thing about the talent that does get paid a million dollars is they get bored really quickly. Of course. And then they want to work with founders that can actually run a good company that are led by values and ethics. And once they've made their money and they're rich, they're happy to take a a pay cut. So, you know, I'm talking to a bunch of those people now that money is not even a conversation. Like, they're generally not interested about money. Yeah. They're interested about the use case. [00:34:04] S5: Yep. [00:34:04] S1: Do you have domain expertise? Like, do you as a founder have the attributes that I want to work for? What are your values? What do you care about? What kind of world are you trying to create? Which gives me hope. It's not just a paycheck. I I certainly don't want people working for me that are just chasing a paycheck. [00:34:21] S5: Why do you believe this about the geographical dispersion? Because I guess what we've seen in history is that every time there is a new technological platform shift, there's this gravitational pulley towards American SF because of, I think two main things, talent and capital. And I think, like, saw a few years ago, SF started to lose a bit of that pull. Things felt more dispersed. As soon as AI came back to the scene, that pull comes back. And there's just this funny cultural thing where America tracks ambition. Why do you think it will become more distinct? [00:34:49] S1: Is that fact though, or is that
00:34:49 · Michelle Gilmore, Adam Miller, Xharmagne Carandang
[00:34:49] S1: Is that fact though, or is that [00:34:51] S5: subjective view? I think if we look at all the platform shifts in the past seventy years, you'd see that there's... Every time there is that platform shift, there is... [00:34:59] S0: Did you [00:34:59] S1: say seventy years? [00:35:00] S5: Seven years. Seventy. Okay. Yep. So platform shifts over seventy years. [00:35:04] S1: Okay. I I think that talent follows money. So there's a bit of chicken and egg conversation about where that is and why that is. And that particularly most of the VCs that started that kind of movement were there. Like, I I honestly do think that that could have been started in other places. I know that there is the... I lived in New York, so I was on the other side of the, you know, the East Coast West Coast fight. Although I absolutely didn't have a didn't have a dog in a fight. But I... I'm not sure that I believe that when you hit a ceiling, that's the only option. I don't... I just don't subscribe to it. I think that it... There are different ways to think about it. There are different ways to think about growth. There are different ways to think about diversity. I think that there is a bubble of talent that all think the same there, even though they think they think differently. You have the same conversation over and over and over again, whereas the conversations I'm having in Japan and South Korea are so interesting, particularly with engineers. So I think that we can go broader.
00:35:04 · Michelle Gilmore, Sachin, Xharmagne Carandang
[00:35:04] S1: Okay. I I think that talent follows money. So there's a bit of chicken and egg conversation about where that is and why that is. And that particularly most of the VCs that started that kind of movement were there. Like, I I honestly do think that that could have been started in other places. I know that there is the... I lived in New York, so I was on the other side of the, you know, the East Coast West Coast fight. Although I absolutely didn't have a didn't have a dog in a fight. But I... I'm not sure that I believe that when you hit a ceiling, that's the only option. I don't... I just don't subscribe to it. I think that it... There are different ways to think about it. There are different ways to think about growth. There are different ways to think about diversity. I think that there is a bubble of talent that all think the same there, even though they think they think differently. You have the same conversation over and over and over again, whereas the conversations I'm having in Japan and South Korea are so interesting, particularly with engineers. So I think that we can go broader. [00:36:13] S2: I think an interesting insight there is, one of the Notion founders, you know, based in The States, but was running out of money. So went to Japan and stayed, I think, his mom or something in Japan. And a lot of the Notion design and aesthetic and minimalism feels very Japanese. And that's probably an example of forcing non consensus and that terming consensus. [00:36:35] S0: It's