Latest / Stress Tested / Why Fred Schebesta Is Leaving The Country

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Why Fred Schebesta Is Leaving The Country · Stress Tested

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Every single bit of attention I put onto it, it
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: made more money. It was like so sensitive. Any effort
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I put in, just whoosh. This is not the place
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to do innovation. This is a government, social, egalitarian country.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: ASIC came after you. How was that experience for you?
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's super rare and I think it's incredible
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and it's going to be this new business.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Can't talk too much about it.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: You famously started buying Bitcoin back when it was $ 6, 000.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Has your Bitcoin thesis changed over that time? Fred Schibester,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: welcome to Stress Tested.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's great to be here.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I want to dive straight in with you. I've been
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: really interested to talk about Bitcoin with you because we
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: were in the depths of this crypto winter and then
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: in August, all of a sudden, we have this 30%
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: rally that caught everyone by surprise. How are you thinking
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: about that rally?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I think when... sellers get exhausted like there's just no
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: more sellers left like there's just you know then when
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the sellers dry up then the book becomes really thin
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and then the buyers just they can't buy enough and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: then the rally comes I think we were just hit
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a point where there was just so much fear so
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: much just selling was all done there was no more
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: left that there was only one way to go and
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that was up and I just I feel like there's
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: this kind of thought that oh all the money's going
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: from a like from crypto into ai or things like
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: that and i think there was a bunch of that
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: but then i think it kind of there's this bubble
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: brewing narrative brewing around ai so everyone's like oh let's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: go back and oh geez you know u.s debt just
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: hit 40 trillion um everyone can see inflation happening you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: know there's still a lot of instability in the world
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: there's this midterms coming up people just thought okay what's
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: going to be big you know bitcoins like digital gold
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: so there's a return back to that and and i
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: i'm absolutely convicted it'll rise again like we are just
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: seeing uh like a like a certain low and is
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: it the is it is at the bottom that's i
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: like there's no point picking bottoms because you get you
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: know smelly fingers um and.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: No one can do it no one there's no point.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Right but i think if you're comfortable here and and
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and Bitcoin is a.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Crypto is a commodity. It's not a financial product, so
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I can say this. It's a... And I proved that
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: in the federal court twice. Yeah, I'd be buying Bitcoin.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I'm buying Bitcoin right here. That's not financial advice if
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to say that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: But regardless, I'm just going to tell you straight.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: That's just what I'm doing.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I want to get into the federal court stuff, but
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: sticking with Bitcoin for a moment. So you're known as
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Australia's Crypto King, you famously started buying Bitcoin back when
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: it was $ 6, 000. Last year it hit $ 126, 000 US dollars.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Has your Bitcoin thesis changed over that time?
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's gotten more and more convicted, like even more.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I've seen it go through three cycles and I've spoken
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to the same people throughout that and they don't change
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: their views. And I just am listening less and less
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: to the haters and almost I sleep where the price goes.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I almost don't really care. Although I, I do consider that,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you know, there are times in the cycle where it's
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: really good buying when everyone's really fearful and, you know,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: you stick by those, those wins. The way I think
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: about it is like this is to keep it really simple.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: You don't need to pick a lot of winners and,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: you just got to pick one or two or three.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: If you just pick one, just buy more of it. Like,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and I, for me, that's Bitcoin.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: What about in terms of the narratives that are swirling around,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: there were always narratives at the moment. There's, you mentioned
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: what's known as the debasement trade or like in terms
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: of the tremendous sovereign debt and devaluing currency. That's, Perhaps
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: one reason people would buy Bitcoin. Another I've seen is
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the idea that there's this agentic economy coming where there'll
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: be all these AI agents and they'll be using stable coins,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: these cryptocurrencies that are pegged to fiat as the settlement layer,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: and then Bitcoin will sit on top of it as
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: a sort of reserve asset. Do you buy into any
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: of those?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I think Bitcoin will become part of a global reserve
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: currency long, long, long term. It's like digital gold, but
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: it's much easier to store. It's much easier to transfer.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: You can use it. You can program stuff on top
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of it. There are things that are done like that,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: but that's not necessarily the main narrative for me is
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the store of value.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Scarcity.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Scarcity, right.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Like there's only one Mona Lisa. I think the– actually,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: funny story. I bought a domain name last night, a. com. Like.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: coms I think are also really tough. It's called Blub.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: How do you spell that? It's just B-B-L-U-B-B.com.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Blub.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: And why did you buy that?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Because I think it's super rare and I think it's
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: incredible and it's going to be this new business.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Right. Okay.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I can't talk too much about it. But it's like that, right?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: There's only one. Yes.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Piece of real estate.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And there's only 21 million Bitcoin.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: You either got one or you don't. Yeah.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I remember I was sitting in London in 2018 and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: there's a guy called Bobby Lee. He was a famous
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Bitcoin miner back then. And he stood, as Bitcoin was
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: going down, he stood in the middle of of the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: room and everyone's around him and everyone's like, oh, Bitcoin's
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: going down, la, la, la. He said, look, if you
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: don't think Bitcoin's got any value, just send it all
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I'm perfectly fine with it.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Like, who wants to sell their Bitcoin to me and
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: just sell it to me? Like, if you don't want it.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And everyone was like, oh, wait, I don't want to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: sell my Bitcoin. And, you know, that's the feeling, right?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: That's the humanity. That's the deep-seated... challenge you know of
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: storing value over long periods of time and gold does
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that yeah you go find some treasure um it's probably
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: got some value you go get a hundred dollars have
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you got a million dollars in cash choose whatever currency
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you want buried in the ground for 500 years how
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: much it's gonna be worth not much yeah and i
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: think that idea is a very pervasive one And something
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: which it's, the thing is, if you, you know, there's
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: all these other crypto coins. It was, oh, you can
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: just copy pasted a lot. Like I just have seen
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: them all. They don't have the same narrative. They don't
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: have the same brand, the brand of Bitcoin with zero
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: people promoting it. Just think about that. How much would
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that be worth? That's an insane valuation. Warren Buffett's probably
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: scratching his head, but he doesn't like crypto, but you know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: he likes to buy brands. That's a great mode. When
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you think about Bitcoin, like, like crypto, what's the first
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: one you buy? People almost associate crypto with Bitcoin. That's
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: pretty big. Another key argument I think about, when people
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: talk about real estate, the crown can take your real
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: estate back.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: How's that?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: They can just go and say, because we don't own
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the land. The government still owns land. The king still
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: owns Australia. They can claim it back, except for the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Aboriginal titles, and that's probably a little.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Bit different, but they can just take it back. I
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: didn't know that.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: They still own Canada. They still own a bunch of properties.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Like fundamentally go to the laws. If you read them
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: into them, they are, yeah, they are, have infinite power
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and they could just change them. They go, Oh, I
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: want a piece of land back. They'll come and buy
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: it from you. And you're like, okay, or I'll just
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: raise your taxes, your property taxes to be ridiculous. You know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: like there's, and you know, so you don't really have
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: absolute sovereignty. Someone can physically come and take it from you. Yeah,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: there's probably laws and stuff, but deep down, someone can interfere,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: but they can't interfere with your Bitcoin.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: As far as stablecoins, you got into these long before
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: most people.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Were aware of them.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: They're probably still an enigma to lots of people. You
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: offered a product called Finder Earn. Can you talk us through...
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: what that product was and why stable coins were important
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to it?
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: So in 2021, interest rates were about 2%. You got
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: about 2% of your money at the bank. And crypto
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: was paying about, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10s,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever. And what I thought was, hey, if people...
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: convert their money into crypto and then lend us that
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: crypto um we'll pay them a yield and we did
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it to bring lots of people into the finder app
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: like because we wanted you know to build it up
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: it was called find to earn very simple like extraordinarily
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: simple um and people loved it there was like we
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: did very little advertising very little promotion.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: They were converting their money into a stable coin.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Yep and then they would lend it to us that
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: sounds like a lending product but it's it is a
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: lending contract but it's not uh and this is what
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: we you know obviously the asset got a bit choppy
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: about us and sued us in the federal court saying
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: it's a debenture And the reason why it's not a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: debenture is because you convert it first into crypto and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: crypto is not a financial product. It's not money either
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: because the government does not want it to be money.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: The RBA doesn't want it to be money. ASIC doesn't
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: want it to be money. The ATO doesn't want it
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to be money because then it'll start to take the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: place of the Australian dollar. And if you can't control
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the Australian dollar, then you can't raise money and then
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you can't do monetary policy. And that's definitely not what
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the government wants. They want to keep printing money and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: keep inflating our money and keep borrowing from it. Yeah,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: you can just see that happening right now and everyone's
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: experiencing it, right? That's the downside of COVID plus all
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: this money going out to the NDIS through government jobs.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: The government sector is just massive, right? And the debt's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just piling up. And you can't... It's called seigniorage. It's
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: been happening for long, long periods of time. The Roman Empire,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: at the end of the Roman Empire, so at the start,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: there was a gold coin. At the end, there was
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a gold coin full of lead. It was 2% gold
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and the rest was just lead. And this has been
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: happening all throughout time. It's happened across history, right?
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: As far as the value of gold coins. So you
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: can't make it money. So we made a crypto as
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a commodity.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: It's like a chair.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So basically, let's say you come to me. You go, hey,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I want to buy a chair. And I'm like, cool,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: here's a chair. And I go, hey, can I borrow
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that chair from you? And I'll give you, in a
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: year's time, I'll give you another chair back. So you
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: get two. So I'll give you a payment. That's called
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: securities lending. And that's where the yield came from. Correct.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And that's essentially what the product was, which is not
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: a financial product. Well, you don't need a financial services
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: license for that. Let's be clear about that.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. ASIC came after you over this, and you ultimately
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: won in the full federal court. It took years, right?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it took four years.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: How was that experience for you, and what did that
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: say to you about– as far as financial innovation in Australia? Well,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: it was pretty stressful.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: It wasn't cool. I would not wish it upon anyone.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: You feel it every single day. You don't sleep. The
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: other problem with the government is they have infinite power
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and they have nothing to lose and no one holds
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: ASIC accountable. Have you ever heard of someone at ASIC
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: going to jail or getting fired?
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: What were the stakes for you? If you had lost...
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Would you.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Have gone to jail? They did threaten me with three
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: years of jail. I don't want to go to jail.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: But I read the law.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Like I read the laws, personally read them. You called
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: them up before you launched the product.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Called them up before I launched it. I lobbied in
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the Australian parliament for more crypto laws. On stable coins
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: in particular as well. You can see my testimony. It's
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: in the parliament record. I was the guy on the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: team coming. They needed someone to shoot.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So how does it go from you call them up
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: and say, hey, guys, I'm going to launch this product
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: and here's why I think it's legal. And then how
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: does it go from that to we're suing you in
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: court now and you could go to jail over this?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: So the temperature at the time was FTX had just exploded.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: The SEC in the US was suing people left, right,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: and center. It's the bottom of the twin tree. And
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Joe Longo wanted to go and like, he was the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: head of ASIC and he wanted to go and shoot
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: some people and be a hero. And now he's turned
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: out to be the killer of innovation.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: That's who he is.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: He killed crypto innovation in Australia. There'll be so many companies,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: so many people employed in crypto. They've all moved overseas.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: They moved to America. They moved to Singapore. They moved
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: to Dubai. They've left.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: All the jobs went with it. All the innovation, all the.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Growth, all the GDP, it's gone. All the tax money
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: we could have collected.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Did ASIC just have the effects wrong or was it
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: a case of the regulations being too outdated? Two things there.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Firstly, when they called us up, we said, let's have
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: a meeting. And I said, oh, there was like eight,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: ten ASIC people on the call. I said, you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: we had our lawyers there and I said, so I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: just want to know, like, have you guys read the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: terms and conditions of the product? They said, oh, can
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you send those through to us? I said, what? Like
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you send me a threatening letter to go to jail
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and then you haven't read the terms and conditions.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Did it feel like it was a foregone conclusion that
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: they'd be pursuing this at any cost?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: It's just a witch hunt for whoever's in crypto. Some
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: guy who's got like crazy hair and says lots of
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: random things on TikTok. Clearly, he doesn't know what he's
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: talking about. Hey, unfortunately, I've done my homework.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: I read the law. I've got lawyers.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Like we had spent millions of dollars preparing for this.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, the ASIC lost. They deserve to lose
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: that as well. And I told them, I said, are
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you sure you guys want to do this?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Are you sure? Like, I don't think it's a good idea.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So you won your case in the full federal court.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: Would you consider.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Making another foray into this?
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: No.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: No, this is not the place to innovate in crypto.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: This is the wrong country. Oh, it's cited in a
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: different country. Because I've already tried that. And it's like,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you know, you get a feeling when, like no one
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: got fired for losing the case against Finder.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Who got fired?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Did anyone get demoted? Was any questions asked? Any inquiries?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Seems like a nothing burger.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Kind of weird, right? As far as do they take
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: stock and say, hey, guys, we might have actually got
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: that wrong.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe we should go and have a chat to him.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: My phone's not ringing. Maybe we should have a chat
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to him. He's genuinely trying to help us. My door's open.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: But the thing is, It's just the wrong country to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: do it in. This is not an innovative country. This
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: is not the place to do innovation. And then the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: government goes and adds another 50% tax, capital gains tax.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: This is just not the right country. This is a government, social,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: egalitarian country. It's like France, except you're missing all the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: 1700s when Napoleon took the whole place over.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I want to get into innovation more with you. Let's
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: go back in time for a bit. Let's go back
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: before stable coins were invented, before Bitcoin was invented. Back
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: when you were a uni student in your early 20s,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: the internet's booming. You start a business called Freestyle Media.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: You were 22 at the time. What was the catalyst
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: for starting that business? I think.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: It's funny. I think about how I start companies. I
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: just sort of see something where a bunch of people
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: need a need and I'm interested in it. I go
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and solve it and I go, oh, well, I solved that. Well,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I'll just go and see if anyone else wants it.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And someone else wants it. And I go, well, I'll
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: give it to you. And then that's how it turns
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: into a company. It's just genuinely the most organic process.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And then I go, is this a big thing? And
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: sometimes it is. And other times it's like, no, it's not.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, so let it fizzle out. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Finder was the exact same thing. It was just, there
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: was like at least, so that first freestyle was, I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: just started learning how to build websites. And my next
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: door neighbor said, hey, can you build my website for me?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I said, sure. He goes, oh, how much are you
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: going to charge me? I said, I don't know. He goes,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I said $ 700. Was it $ 1, 500 or something?
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I just made up a number.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I didn't know how much to charge.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And he said, sure.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And back then, like building a website, if you're going
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: to build a website, you could charge millions of dollars.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: So we're talking early 2000s.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, early 2000s, just clocked over, yeah. And you were
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: really into the internet at this time.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I loved it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: And you're curious about it. You're sort of clicking around.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: So you just started building websites because you were curious
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: about it and you enjoyed it?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Did you want to make some money as well?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: No, no aspirations, just childlike playing with it. I do
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: this all the time. Like it's like the blob thing,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: you know, blob's going to be something big, but I
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: have no idea.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: It just sounds good. It's going to be a big brand,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: huge global. How much was blood by the way?
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: It was a cent.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: See what happens. Blob.com.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: So you launched this business before you started freestyle media.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: We did you have an entrepreneurial streak before then?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: No. Well, I sold like, uh, BB guns at, at,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: at school.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: I think. Oh, like the BB gun arbitrage.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to say that.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: We used to have buying them at a $ 2 store
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: and then.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Right. But before there was Timu, before there was eBay,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: before there was any of those things.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Um, and I guess you were, you were curious and
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: interested in BB guns.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Like I just thought it's not actually not really. I
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: just thought it's just popular. That's all I cared about. Um,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I think I just sort of catch trends, you know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: like there's like little waves form all the time. I just,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the internet was a big wave and I thought, okay,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I better get the surfboard out in this one. And
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that turned out into a big wave. And crypto, I
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's going to be a big wave.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get the surfboard out and we'll ride
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: that one. And right now, I think AI is like that.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: as well um mixed feelings about where the angle is
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: on that yeah it's a much sharper much higher stakes
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: game very fast and you can get eaten up really
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: quick brutal game because everything's The moats are really hard.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: These companies are just, they're losing billions. They're making money,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: but it's wild.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: So you caught the wave as far as being able
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: to make websites with Freestyle Media, and that became a
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: business worth over a million dollars. Yeah. You worked on
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: it with your partner, Frank. You sold Freestyle Media. What
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: was it that made you think, I want to do
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: this again. I want to start a new business.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Inside Freestyle, we had another company called Freestyle E-Business. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: in that, we just experimented. Because the problem was, you know,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: we made these websites for people and we, like, I
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: was taking them to the top of Google and making,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: they were making so much money. For the amount of
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: money they were paying us, it was wild. They were
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: just crushing it. Because we just figured it out and
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: it was so early. Like, people just didn't know about, like,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: now it's like everyone knows about advertising and, you know,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Google advertising. But back then, no one knew about that.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: No one knew you could make an ad on Google.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: No one knew you should, like, buy banner ads and, like,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: how did you do that? No one had any idea.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: The dissemination of that information was so low. So, we
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: had an edge in that sense.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Right. So, you were building websites, but you were also
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: building banner ads and Google ads and emails, like, competitions.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Like to get people in, right? Like, you know, get
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: them into the website.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And so we mastered that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: That's the key. You sort of became fluent in something
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: that was just gobbledygook to most people at that time.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: No one knew there.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Was like dark arts to getting the top of Google.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: It was dark art.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: I used a bit of dark arts.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I got in trouble for that. But anyway, that's another story.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: But I think, so I just thought, oh, you know,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Frank and I were like, let's go and build some
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: websites and make some, do what, We're doing for other people,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: but just do it for ourselves. And we built a
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Sudoku site, Mother's Day present site, poker site, sports betting site.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Probably should have kept going with that one, but anyway.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Credit card finder was one.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: So you were kind of putting out tentacles in every direction.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually had one called womenperfume.com.au. And it just
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: compared where you buy perfume, like the five different places online.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: So each perfume you would just, and it would just
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: go to ranking Google. That's it. It was, I think
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: it made like $ 24 a month or something, but it
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was just another experiment. I do this all the time.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know the curiosity.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And then I don't know what the answer is. It
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but there'll be a right moment for it
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and it'll come. And that's, and just, then you just
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: go back and go, okay, here's all this stuff on
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the wall. What's working. And it wasn't like credit card
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: finder was necessarily crushing it. I was just like, Oh,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: maybe that one looks like interesting. It is making a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: little bit of money. That's weird. And I just put
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit more attention to it and a little
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: bit more. And then every single bit of attention I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: put onto it, it made more money. It was like
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: so sensitive. Just any moment, any effort I put in,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: just whoosh, up it went. And that's when I knew, okay,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: just all eyes on that one, all effort.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: So as you got that positive feedback loop from credit
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: card finder, You discarded the others, the other experiments. You
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: knew what to focus on.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: We still own the domain names, but I think we
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: still own sudoku.com.au. Is Woman Perfume still going? No. Maybe
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I should boot that up.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: You've been working with Frank for 20 years, right?
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, more.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: 23.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: How do you make a partnership last that long?
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I think we're like solidly married and he's a really
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: good communicator. And he just, he's probably.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: A better man than me. Put it that way.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: But, um, that's high praise.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's kind of factual. I would say I'm
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: like the liability in the, in the relationship.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: That's very honest.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: But so at the moment he's find a CEO, your chairman.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So we work together. Like, you know, we work really,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: really well. Like, Imagine Frank's not like me, obviously.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: He's the complete opposite.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: But there's a little bit of me and a little
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: bit of him we swap over. Sometimes I'm super conservative.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, super conservative. I'll get into the numbers
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and I'll be like, I think this, this, this, and
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I'll be really conservative. Other times he'll be really wild
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and take a lot of risk.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: And you think, oh, maybe I'm the guy.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: That takes all the risk all the time. That's not true. Together,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: we come from different angles and it's just this natural...
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: you know, cocktail that you'd think, oh, like, you know,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: if we get the bit of this and a bit
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of that and you put it together, I don't know
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: if that's going to work. And it just does. And
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was planned. It was just natural. Again,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: very organic where we would go and do projects or
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: experiments or, and a lot of those projects and experiments
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: were quite hijinks. Like we hosted this crazy party.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: So we built this website.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So let me just give you a time travel. 2003,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: we built a website called Australia Day Party and it
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: was Australia Day, right? And Facebook is only just starting up.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: There's no Twitter. There's no, like, and this is just beginning, right?
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So imagine these times and we built a website and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: everyone's like, well, your party has a website? I'm like, yeah,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: come join. And so people are signing up, right? They're
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: putting their email in up. They go and we start
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: calling up brands. We call up Master Foods. Hey, we've
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: got this Australia Day Party. They go, what's the call? AustraliaDayParty.com.au.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Check it out. They're like, oh, they sent us, I'm
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: not joking, 15 cases of sauce. Like chili sauce, barbecue sauce,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: tomato sauce. We want to sponsor it.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: We want to be in it.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like, good. Okay.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Bundaberg sent us stuff. Who sent you sauce? Master Foods.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of sauce. Because we had one of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the pie companies. I can't think of the name of
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the pie company right now.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: So the party had sponsors.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it had sponsors. And we had Hula Hoop sponsored.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Because we had a Hula Hoop competition. And we had
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: this hula hoop sponsored.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: That was great.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And the hula hoop goes, hula, hula, hula. Anyway, the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: thing we needed to do, but I was like, ah,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: it's a party.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: It's good.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Straight out of the day.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cool. Got sponsored. I've seen this before. I said, ciao.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I call him, ciao and I call each other. Like
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I call him ciao.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: It's a long story.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: It's not like blah, but it'll be.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Anyway, so I said, it's not enough.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: No one's coming. No one cares.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be spoken about. for generations you
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: know it's not like gonna be a thing yet it's
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: not enough i go we need something remarkable something that
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: everyone's gonna talk about and he's like well what are
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: you gonna do like what does that mean i'm like
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: he's not afraid that's too much risk i'm.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Like no no we need to do something crazy.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: We need to get a kangaroo or something or like
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: go and find like you know like it's australia day
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: we need to get like i don't know a piece
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: of the harbor bridge or something we need something big
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: And somehow I think, I can't remember who suggested it. I,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: you know, we came to, let's go and get five
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: tons of sand. We lived in this little semi in
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: North Sydney.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: You and Frank lived together. Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: That was dangerous. We ran it like an Airbnb, um,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: before there was Airbnb. Um, that's how we actually stayed
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: alive by the way and survived. Um, anyway, so we, we,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: we got this five tons of sand and I called
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: up the sand company. I said, Oh, you kind of
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: get some sand. He's like, what type of sand? Do
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you want tennis court sand? Do you want like pavement sand?
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, I'll take the pavement. And he goes,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: where are you going to put it? I'm like, oh,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: just bring it to, you know, the address, you know,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Wailing Road. Anyway, so he comes along and he drops
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: it on the street. He's like, where am I going
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to put it? I'm like, there?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: And we come out with wheelbarrows and.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Buckets and everyone's like healing this and we're like going back.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: We've got five tons of sand as fast as we
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: can without getting a fine into the back of this house.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Like imagine a semi. You just Picture a semi full
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: of sand. It'd look better than Bondi Beach. Everyone comes in.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: They take their shoes off.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: This party went supersonic. And everyone's been talking about the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: sand ever since. Like, who has a beach in North Sydney?
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: No one does, but we do. And so you come
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: to the party. It was huge.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: And that's the.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Kind of things we do. It was the sand that
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: made the party. Sand made the party. And so, Frank,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: in those days, you'd lived together.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Work together 20 years, you're able to build Finder into
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: this global fintech from Sydney. You mentioned innovation in Australia before.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: You've spoken previously about the changes in the May budget,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: the tax changes for investors and business owners. I wanted
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to ask you, if you were in your early 20s
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: in Australia today, Would you build something here or would
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: you be gone?
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: No, leave.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Should leave.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Where would you be?
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Just go to Singapore, go to America, go to Dubai
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: or like in the Middle East somewhere. You can even
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: go to London actually. Go to places where they value
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and appreciate and understand the contribution of hard work. and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: taking risks and that that value goes back to the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: person who did that, not to the government to go
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: and take care of their risk-taking. Go there. And then
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: get all that money, come back to Australia and buy
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: your home. Then you don't have to worry about all
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the other issues, right? And you can just live into
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: this thing. That's what people are going to do. That's
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: what they're going to do this. It's going to happen.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: That's what is happening. What needs to change? I mean,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: it seems like there's so much that we could get into.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: You could just change one thing. Just go the other
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: way for once.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Anything.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Anything will do. Just repeal the tax idea on... There's
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: so many consequences to that impact. But You're talking about
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the CGT. CGT, especially on stocks and on businesses. You know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: just go and fix some of the, like, industrial relations laws.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: You know, giving stock to early employees at companies is
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a nightmare. You can't give options. Just all these things are, like,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: you can, but it's just such, like... You have to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: pay so much money to accounting and law firms to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: go and make it compliant so the person doesn't have
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to pay tax and all sorts of things. It is
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: just not pro-business. This is not a pro-business country. Then
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: there's the whole tall poppy thing to some extent. And
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I think the government could definitely lean in and start
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to change that, like where you start to celebrate people
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: who have been successful and hero them. Very easy to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: build a statue of someone that has donated huge amounts
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: of money and done all sorts of things, right? If
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you make money in this country, you just basically go quiet.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: And so young kids don't hear about those people and
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: they don't realize that how did you go.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: About doing that?
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Like there's so many great entrepreneurs here, unfortunately, but they
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: just keep their heads down.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: You don't tend to keep your head down. Someone's got
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: to do it. Yeah. I think it's my way of
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: giving back. It costs me a lot. Finders have been
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: through big changes. In terms of the landscape, finders had
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: to navigate and the way people find information. There was
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: social media, the rise of social media, smartphones. Now, it
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: seems that people will increasingly get their information from these LLMs,
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: these large language models, and possibly AI agents. How are
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: you thinking about AI and how Finder will.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Adapt to that?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think there's this, I don't know if everyone,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: when you're using an LLM or an AI, you kind
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: of use it a bit, and then you get to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: this weird point where kind of second guess it and
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, is that right?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: You kind of need two other LLMs to verify what
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: the first LLM said.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Or you tend to go to the website. You go, oh, actually,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I don't actually, I don't want to
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: get this wrong.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to go do the work.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And that's the information Finder provides is the actual data,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the actual answers, the actual comparisons, the up-to-date data about
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: pretty far you know, big things in your life where
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: you're spending money. And yeah, that's what we've seen in
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that transition. It's like, I think people are quite there
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: just fully handing over their finances to, you know, a
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: model which guesses the next best answer. I don't want
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to next best guess my finances.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Probably not.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Cause I'm going to end up in a weird situation
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: with a weird, you know, hallucination or, Sometimes you end
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: up with products that don't exist. They don't exist. That
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist. Or you go to the website that it's
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: sourcing and it's not there.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Someone's asked about a credit card and it's just invented
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: this whole product. Just invented it.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Or a broadband plan that doesn't exist. I've asked it
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: before as well. Take a screenshot of it and then
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: it screenshots a 404 page and sends it to.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: You and you're like, okay, no.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It's just... Remember, in LLM, what it's really good at
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: is guessing the next best thing. Guessing. Remember, you're getting guesses,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: not actual facts, you know, anything.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Which is crazy that we place so much stock in
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: them and we see it as intelligence. I mean, I
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: guess it is, but that's all it's doing is just
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: predicting the most probable next word in a chain of words, right? Yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: You're getting a simulation of an answer that it thinks
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: might be right for you. Do you accept this answer?
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: They're wondering. Secretly behind. The LLM is thinking, they're going,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you know, and then when you call it out, have
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you ever done this? You go, man, you're completely wrong.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: This doesn't exist. I get quite angry. It's like, oh,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. You're right to push back there.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. You're right. And, you know, even times
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: you go, I specifically wanted you to do this.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: And it goes, oh, yeah, I didn't do that. Like
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: imagine like you just get like a product or you
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: end up in a financial situation and it's like, yeah,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: LLM was wrong.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Like you'd be messy, right? That's not the best. What
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: about this as far as the idea that there will
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: be these AI agents, everyone will have a personal agent
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: and you'll ask your agent something and it will go
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: out and speak to other agents, which would, I guess,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: render the idea of websites redundant. Like in that scenario would,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: would Finder be its own AI agent that would be
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: talking to the other agents? Some people are.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Some people are going to get their agents to go
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: and talk to other agents and then go all the
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: way down the pipe.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: But they're going to have to put.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: A lot of work around that agent to make sure
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: it's stable, not giving wrong answers, that it doesn't break,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: dealing with large sums of money. You want to give
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: your agent large sums of money and see what happens.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: considering some of the things that it does. I don't know.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I think we're a little early in that sense.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: You do use LLMs in your personal life, but with
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: a healthy dose of skepticism and wanting to verify what
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: they're saying and doing.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Massively.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: I have a personal agent. I have a bunch of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: them and use all sorts of things. And it's just
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: one of the things it does.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Are you doing any kind of experiments with them at
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: the moment? Yeah, all the time.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: All the time. trying to see what it would do,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: what it won't do. And it's like some moments in
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: time are extraordinarily painful. I would, I'd say we're still
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: pretty early. I think there'll be another platform or another
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: model that will be the actual thing we're looking for,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: like some sort of intelligence model, as opposed to just
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: giving us really well thought out guesses, like reasoning and
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: those kinds of things. Like I think it needs, needs work.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I think we've got a bit of.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Work to do to go there and to give that
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to everyone. Like, why would a company that did that
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: give it to everyone?
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Why would you do that?
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: You just want to keep it for yourself, right?
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: AI is disrupting the workforce, knowledge workers. As far as
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: for young Aussies who are trying to figure out what
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: skills pathways or what study pathways they should take so
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: that they have a job in a few years. And
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: I know you care a lot about this. You talk
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: a lot about entrepreneurship. You wrote a book about it,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: a book called Go Live, 10 Principles to Launch a
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Global Empire. What's your advice for young Australians at the
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: moment who want to start a business or just be
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: employed in a few years?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: So I think there are a number of skills that
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: surround AI that are extraordinarily valuable. And there are a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: number of areas where AI is not tapping into. It's not...
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: And you need to be the sort of... The human
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: has to be the rails that surround it to keep
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: it on track.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: And you want to be in that business. You want
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: to be one of those people.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: So the first part is... Like a very basic role
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: would be to use an AI and be really effective
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: at it and service and help someone solve a problem.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Whether that's inside a company, but you use AI to
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: do that. But you do it really effectively. So that's
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: something different, right?
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: They're sort of like the people who will be valuable
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: will be very good stewards of AI. Yep. The second person.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: People will still be necessary. Yeah, I think so.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: For a long period of time. Because it's just too.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Random right now.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Second person I think is going to become even more
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: valuable is someone who orchestrates those people. So, imagine now,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: like everyone can kind of do a lot of roles
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: really like quite well, like everyone's quite T-shaped, you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: like you can do lots of things. Someone needs to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: be able to orchestrate a bunch of T-shaped people to
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: go and be very effective. And that orchestration will never
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: go away. Like, like aligning people giving us a common goal,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: motivating them, managing them, getting really good talent in to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: do that. Someone needs to do that. That's not going
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: to go away. It's all good and well. These AIs
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: do a bunch of stuff. Cool. Someone needs to look
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: at those and then someone needs to manage those people
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: who manage those. You probably want to be that person.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: The third thing I think is super like an area
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: where I think unbelievably undervalued right now and I think
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: it's going to get even more is the person who
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: can get attention. Because if you and I right now,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: we could go and code a little website. We'll put
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: a website up on blub.com. And either of us could
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: do it with AI. We go and deploy it. Cool.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And then to that kind of part, it's commoditized. But
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: you've got all these websites sitting out there with these
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: pages and no one's seeing it.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: And I guess... with the advent of AI, there are
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: more websites than ever, more, there'll be more small businesses
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: than ever. So I guess competition will be fiercer than ever.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Right. So attention is even more valuable. So if you
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: can figure out how to get attention, you're going to
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: be very valuable.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Fred, I want to finish off with this in terms
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: of the future over the next 10 years or so,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: these predictions, as far as AGI, there are, Utopian descriptions
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: of what it's going to be like. There's dystopian descriptions,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: massive layoffs, abundance, universal income, all of it. When you
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: look ahead, are you optimistic or pessimistic about what's coming?
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I think that over the next 10 years, the distance
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: between haves and have-nots is going to be even wider.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Innovations don't clump with large groups of people. They actually
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: start with few people that can afford it and have
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: the impact and have the value. There'll be less people
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: earning big amounts of money and they'll earn more money.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: And I don't think that trend is going to stop.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to get bigger and exponentially faster.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: So you don't see a situation where AI sort of
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: democratizes the access that people have to intelligence and to
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: the ability to start a business or to create things.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: You see it more with a crew to a select
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: few who have the wherewithal and the resources.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, less people will control more and it'll go further.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And it's just unfortunately the power law of the universe
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: it's just just the way it the way it goes.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: It's not like.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: The universe is not fair mother nature is not fair
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: it's unfair and it goes to the people who take
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the action you go live are proactive take take risks
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and land the risks make great decisions orchestrate people sell
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: their ideas blub.com.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Fred, it's been awesome having you. Thanks for joining us
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: on Stress Tested.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 43:13
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• 43:16
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• 43:22
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