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  1. -6 h

    Claudia Barriga-Larriviere: Are Your People More Productive, or Just Faster?

    Every great team she has ever seen shares one trait: they are comfortable with discomfort. Claudia Barriga-Larriviere has spent nearly 20 years building people and culture inside startups and global enterprises — and she thinks most of the AI conversation is quietly dodging the hard, human questions. In this episode of Building Tech Teams, James MacDonald sits down with Claudia Barriga-Larriviere — people-and-culture leader and founder of Startup Flamingo — for a practitioner-to-practitioner conversation on how capable people actually build teams. They get into self-awareness as a muscle rather than a gift, why Australia's love of harmony quietly kills direct feedback, and the difference between a team that is genuinely high-performing and one that is just stressed and running fast off a cliff together. Then it turns to AI — not as weather to brace for, but as a tool you have to point somewhere. Are your people more productive, or just faster? What do you lose when you automate the uncomfortable parts of the job — the feedback loop, the one-on-one, the human connection — and who is a flattened, agent-run org actually built for? Claudia makes the case that AI should augment an already good team, that you have to build that team first, and that the leaders winning this moment are the ones asking better questions instead of racing to be first. It's a conversation about discomfort, storytelling, balanced teams, and keeping the human in a human organisation. Chapters0:35 — The one trait every great team shares: comfortable with discomfort (plus self-awareness)1:46 — Is self-awareness born or built? Temperament, empathy and psychological safety3:28 — Why leaders dodge the hard conversation3:59 — Cutting her teeth on GFC redundancies: directness and an American education6:04 — Australia's harmony problem vs direct feedback6:43 — What "high performance" actually means (and what it doesn't)7:42 — The feedback loops we outsource because they're uncomfortable9:17 — Protect the plan, or chase the Nazis? An Indiana Jones lesson for leaders11:18 — Read fiction: storytelling, empathy and depersonalising feedback14:35 — Praise the person, critique the work — and when to call it out16:55 — Overconfident founders and the case for yin-and-yang teams18:39 — Powers of Two: debunking the lone genius (Lincoln, Lennon & McCartney, Jobs & Woz)23:13 — Hire for change, not to fit in24:20 — The maths of a founding team: builder, organiser, learner26:41 — Glue vs grease: does your team need cohesion or speed?28:53 — Project or person? The metabolism of a team29:47 — AI is a tool, not the weather33:16 — The narrative vs the technology — and the Tickle Me Elmo problem41:14 — Slow down to speed up: when the market rewards layoffs42:32 — The CPO's dilemma: more productive, or just faster?45:04 — When is the risk no longer worth it? (You're paying by the token)48:21 — Longevity isn't impact: off-ramps and the retention vanity metric49:52 — Is AI making the manager redundant?52:54 — The automatic ball thrower: what you lose when you automate connection58:31 — AI augments a great team — but you have to build that team first59:18 — Departing advice: play the tape to the end, and be in the business you're in1:03:32 — Purpose over "who gets there first" — go touch some grass About the GuestClaudia Barriga-Larriviere is a people-and-culture leader with nearly 20 years building teams across startups and global enterprises, and the founder of Startup Flamingo. LinksClaudia Barriga-Larriviere — Startup Flamingo: startupflamingo.comJames MacDonald — LinkedIn · NTP Talent (NewyTechPeople): ntptalent.com.au Hosted by James MacDonald, Managing Director of NTP Talent. Building Tech Teams is produced by Day One®, trusted partners in the technology space and the production partner behind Blackbird Ventures' Wild Hearts. Sister shows include First Cheque, Oversubscribed and In The Blink of AI. Episodes are cross-promoted across the network.

    Claudia Barriga-Larriviere: Are Your People More Productive, or Just Faster?
  2. -1 dia

    What Makes a Founder Worth Backing at Pre-Seed? With Ilana Elbaz | GTM at Deel

    Episode SummaryIlana Elbaz was employee number five and the first go-to-market hire at Deel, helping scale the company from its early pivots through blockchain and payments to a business she helped grow from zero to hundreds of millions in ARR in just a few years. She's now an active angel investor and runs Deel's global pitch competition, which received tens of thousands of applications this year. In this episode, Cheryl and Maxine unpack how operating inside one of the fastest-scaling companies in the world shapes the way Ilana evaluates founders as an investor. She breaks down her "3-star model" for backing companies (right infrastructure, right team, right timing, read from right to left), why she looks for founders with velocity and speed over founders who claim to have it all figured out, and why the biggest red flag at pre-seed is a founder who narrows their market too early. You'll also hear why she pushes back on founders who insist on enterprise-only or single-market strategies before they even know their ICP, why treating international hiring as a growth problem rather than an HR problem is critical for founders building outside the US, and why Australian founders' instinct to think global from day one is a genuine advantage. Ilana shares what she learned scaling Deel's own go-to-market using the company's own product across dozens of countries, and why staying close to your first hundred customers matters more than shipping a polished product. She closes with her Big Cojones moment: repeatedly landing alone in unfamiliar countries, from opening entities in Thailand to sourcing product in China at 19, with no support system and straight into meetings with lawyers she'd never met. Time Stamps00:00 - Intro 04:15 – Ilana's first investment: buying Amazon stock at age 10 and the lesson she learned selling too early 09:30 – Why Ilana joined Deel as employee five, drawn in by the labor law and compliance nightmare of scaling internationally 14:05 – The 3-star model: right infrastructure, right team, right timing, and why it should be read backwards 17:50 – Why founders who claim to have it all figured out should be a pass 21:40 – The danger of narrowing your market too early at pre-seed 28:10 – Why treating global hiring as a growth problem, not an HR problem, changes everything 33:00 – What makes Australian founders well suited to thinking global from day one 36:45 – How to answer "what's your expansion plan" as a green flag for investors 40:20 – Inside Deel's global pitch competition: 35,000 applications and five investments 46:10 – Big Cojones moment: landing alone in unfamiliar countries to open new markets Mentioned in this episode: Pear Tree If you're a founder or operator trying to scale, here's the reality — Australian hiring is getting harder, salaries are at record highs, and the talent you need is increasingly out of reach. The best operators are quietly building offshore teams of engineers, marketers, accountants and analysts at a fraction of the cost. Pear Tree does it differently. We headhunt highly skilled talent from the Philippines and South Africa with full transparency on where every dollar goes, so your team is paid fairly and fully focused on your business. As a Day One listener, you’ll receive a free team audit to identify where offshore talent could move the needle in your business, plus 20% off your first hire. Deel x PX_Script 2 Deel x PX_Script 1 This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp Spotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

    What Makes a Founder Worth Backing at Pre-Seed? With Ilana Elbaz | GTM at Deel
  3. -5 dias

    From a Secondhand Desk to a $120M Exit: Mark Samlal's Story

    Mark Samlal grew up as one of the only Indian families in a small Perth township, went on to co-found a payroll company from a secondhand desk in Singapore with his wife Samantha, and eventually listed it on the ASX as PayGroup. In 2022 Deel acquired the business in an all-cash deal worth $120M at a 143% premium to market. In this conversation Mark talks about the racism he faced growing up, the "4 or out the door" sales mentality that shaped his early career, what it actually feels like to run a public company, and why he's stayed on at Deel almost four years after the acquisition. He also opens up about the guilt of building a business while raising three daughters, and the pull he's feeling to reconnect with his roots in Fiji and India. Timestamps00:00 – Cold open: race, accountability, and the "4 or out the door" origin story 01:55 – Younger Mark: born in Fiji, his father's journey from teacher to social worker 09:23 – University, meeting Samantha, and the early grind in real estate 15:56 – Into telecom, then payroll software — learning on the job 21:43 – Meeting mentor Phil Cave and turning around Lendlease Employer Services 32:40 – Racism growing up and being "the only brown person in the room" 37:59 – The move to Singapore and building the Sharks Basketball community 43:13 – Running multiple businesses at once and bootstrapping PayAsia with Samantha 51:25 – Skipping VC/PE, and what it's really like leading a public company 1:05:36 – COVID, 3 acquisitions, and the road to the Deel deal 1:09:52 – The Deel acquisition: $120M all-cash, 143% premium 1:13:34 – Culture shock joining Deel, AI's impact on HR/payroll, and why he's stayed 1:27:03 – Raising 3 daughters, fatherhood, and business regrets 1:38:34 – The Pingyao story, undervaluing Asian entrepreneurs, and where he's headed next Sponsors:Perspective X is supported by our wonderful sponsors:Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders. It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast. Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone Perspective X is part of Day One.Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often. To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows. Mentioned in this episode: Deel x PX_Script 1 Deel x PX_Script 2

    From a Secondhand Desk to a $120M Exit: Mark Samlal's Story
  4. -5 dias

    John Fry: building Australia's first missile factory in the Hunter

    Australia is about to build guided missiles for the first time — and Kongsberg is doing it at Williamtown, in the Hunter. John Fry, Managing Director of Kongsberg Defence Australia, joins James MacDonald for the first episode of Engineering in the Hunter to explain what's being built, why a 210-year-old Norwegian company chose Newcastle over 40 other sites, and what it means for the region: roughly 100 factory jobs, a supply chain that reaches far wider, and a genuine pathway from the University of Newcastle and TAFE into work being done on a world stage. In this episode: What Kongsberg is building at Williamtown: the Naval Strike Missile and Joint Strike Missile — two 5th-generation cruise missiles — in the company's first missile factory outside Norway, ever.The $850m the Commonwealth committed in August 2024 to manufacture and maintain those missiles in Australia, and why sovereign weapons production suddenly mattered after COVID and Ukraine.Why the Hunter beat 40 other sites — proximity to Orchard Hills, a port and an airbase, livability, and a good university and TAFE next door.How you stand up a missile factory on the other side of the world through a pandemic — a P&L from day one, defence-security accreditation, and building a supply chain from scratch.What NSM and JSM actually do — a stealthy imaging-infrared seeker, deck- or truck-launched, and a missile small enough to fit inside an F-35's internal weapons bay.The jobs: not just engineers — planning, supply chain, quality, IT, security, technicians — "the whole gamut," about 100 at the factory, with ~85% of the build spend flowing to Hunter businesses.Growing local talent: a first Newcastle-uni intern converting to a grad role, sponsoring the university's rocketry team, and how TAFE fits as technician demand ramps.Partnerships as the way into the Hunter — HunterNet, Multiplex, and the Thales tie-up behind StrikeMaster.What's next: Army's Long Range Fires down-select, counter-UAS and air-and-missile defence. John Fry is Managing Director of Kongsberg Defence Australia. A former Australian Army air-defence officer with a chemistry background and a Master of Science in Guided Weapon Systems, he spent nine years at Raytheon — where he was capture lead on the NASAMS program — before joining Kongsberg in 2019 as its inaugural general manager in Australia. Register your interest via the Kongsberg careers page (kongsberg.com). Chapters 0:00 "A company since 1814" — the cold open 1:00 Welcome to Engineering in the Hunter — and why Kongsberg 1:58 From Army air-defence officer to missile-maker 6:05 Kongsberg since 1814 7:11 Why Australia — the NASAMS win 8:47 Standing up in-country through COVID 10:55 Running a P&L from day one 12:25 What we're building: the NSM and JSM 15:31 The $850m sovereign-manufacturing commitment 18:20 The JSM — a strike missile that fits inside the F-35 20:20 Why the Hunter: 40 sites, Orchard Hills, Williamtown 23:23 The factory: Norway's blueprint, self-contained 26:38 The jobs — "the whole gamut," about 100 roles 28:31 Finding talent locally 30:05 Pathways: the Newcastle-uni intern and TAFE 32:15 Partnerships — HunterNet, Multiplex, StrikeMaster 35:24 What's next: Long Range Fires, counter-UAS 37:43 How to get in — Kongsberg careers and the grad program Engineering in the Hunter is hosted by Melinda Sietsma with NTP Talent founder James MacDonald. James hosts this episode. Learn more at ntptalent.com.au. Engineering in the Hunter is produced by Day One®, trusted partners in the technology space and the team that helped build Blackbird Ventures' Wild Hearts. Sister shows include First Cheque, Oversubscribed and In The Blink of AI. Episodes are cross-promoted across the network.

    John Fry: building Australia's first missile factory in the Hunter
  5. 13/07

    Nathan Hill: Managing a Team of Agents Now — What's That Worth?

    The business wants AI, and it wants it yesterday. But once the proof of concept works and the partner goes home, someone inside the company has to keep the thing running. Nathan Hill, Head of Telco at AWS and a 20-year veteran of the telco industry, joins James to talk about what actually happens when enterprises push AI into production — and why the scarcest asset in the room is still deep domain knowledge. In this episode: - Why "we need to do AI, the board's pushing for it" so often collides with the buy-versus-build question no one has answered internally. - Where AI rollouts go wrong: over-engineering a basic problem, or buying an off-the-shelf tool and expecting it to be bespoke. - The proof-of-concept trap — projects that "prove AI works" but were never built with a path to production. - Why "AI native" doesn't translate cleanly to banks and telcos carrying 20–30 years of legacy and technical debt, and why the outcome should drive the tech strategy, not the reverse. - The handover problem in one line: "If your chatbot starts spitting out Gordon Ramsay recipes instead of the answer, who in your organisation can fix it?" - Centralise-then-seed: standing up an AI centre of excellence without creating an isolated team of "cool kids" cut off from the business (with a NASA analogy on risk). - Why you can't take 20 years of experience, grab a dev and say "now you know telco" — and how the tooling finally lets domain experts build. - Human-in-the-loop for critical infrastructure, digital twins of telco networks, and ICs becoming managers of agents. - The question James keeps asking: if I'm managing a team of agents at 10x productivity, what should I actually be paid? - Deep versus broad careers, how go-to-market has changed, and whether it's easier to teach a salesperson the tech or an engineer to sell. Nathan Hill is Head of Telco at AWS, leading the company's engagement across Australian telcos. Before AWS he spent more than 20 years inside the telco industry — operations, engineering, pre-sales and sales — and ran sales and marketing for a challenger telco. He has a rare view across both the technical build and the go-to-market that sells it. Building the team that has to make AI stick in production? This one's for you. Connect with Nathan Hill on LinkedIn. Learn more about AWS in telco at aws.amazon.com. --- Episode Summary The business wants AI now — but who keeps it running once it's live? Nathan Hill, Head of Telco at AWS and a 20-year telco veteran, sits down with James MacDonald to unpack what really happens when enterprises move AI from proof of concept to production. They dig into the buy-versus-build decision most organisations skip, why so many AI projects stall with no path to production, and the operating-model questions — who maintains it, who fixes it when it breaks — that companies leave until it's too late. Nathan makes the case that deep domain expertise is the asset AI can't replace: you can't grab a dev and say "now you know telco," but you can finally give 20-year network engineers the tools to build. They also get into human-in-the-loop for critical infrastructure, ICs becoming managers of agents and what that's worth, deep-versus-broad careers, and how the go-to-market function is changing now that the salesperson has to understand the tech. Practical, grounded, no hype. Time Stamps 0:00 "I'm managing a team of agents now — what should I be paid?" 1:30 Meet Nathan Hill, Head of Telco at AWS 2:58 "The board wants AI": the buy-versus-build question 4:30 Where AI rollouts go wrong 6:35 Start with a use case — but build a path to production 8:09 Is "AI native" realistic for banks and telcos? 9:36 Speed versus security in regulated industries 11:56 The handover problem: who maintains it? 15:21 AI centres of excellence and the NASA analogy 18:26 "You can't grab a dev and say now you know telco" 21:30 Why agents won't replace engineers 23:41 Managing a team of agents — what's that worth? 25:03 Deep versus broad: staying in one vertical 27:08 How go-to-market has changed 29:59 Teach a salesperson the tech, or an engineer to sell? 32:58 Building a go-to-market function from scratch 38:03 Why the "SaaS apocalypse" is wrong 39:56 Upskilling into modern go-to-market 41:21 Career advice: back yourself 42:42 James's takeaway: domain experts who learn to build About the host James MacDonald is the founder and Managing Director of NTP Talent (Newy Tech People), an Australian tech and engineering recruitment firm headquartered in Newcastle with teams in Sydney and Melbourne. He hosts Building Tech Teams, helping companies up the East Coast of Australia find and recruit the best technology talent. Connect with James on LinkedIn (/JamesMacDonaldAU) or at ntp-talent.com.au. About Day One Network Day One is a podcast production company and trusted partner in the technology space, producing shows for founders, investors and operators across Australia and beyond. Building Tech Teams is part of the Day One Network, which cross-promotes episodes across a slate of technology and venture shows. Building Tech Teams is produced by Day One®, trusted partners in the technology space and the production partner behind Blackbird Ventures' Wild Hearts. Sister shows include First Cheque, Oversubscribed and In The Blink of AI. Episodes are cross-promoted across the network.

    Nathan Hill: Managing a Team of Agents Now — What's That Worth?
  6. 9/07

    Mira Murati, the Quiet Superpower in the AI Race

    Welcome to the first ever episode of AI Icons, a new thing I'm launching on the show. Here's the idea: the people reshaping tech have stories more entertaining than anything Hollywood is putting out, so in under 30 minutes I'm going to tell you the whole story, the good, the bad, and the ugly, but only the facts. No spin. And at the end, I'll give you my two cents on what actually made them an icon, and whether it's something you and I could ever replicate. First up is Mira Murati, and I'll admit it, I'm a fan. I take you all the way back to her childhood in isolated post-communist Albania, where maths was the one subject the party couldn't rewrite, through a scholarship in Canada, degrees in maths and mechanical engineering, and a Goldman Sachs floor in Tokyo at 21. Then it's Tesla and those ridiculous Falcon Wing doors, a risky bet on a startup called Leap Motion, and the move that made her famous: OpenAI, where she rose to CTO and helped bring DALL-E and ChatGPT into your life. And then there's the part that genuinely reads like a thriller. The 72 hours in November 2023 when Sam Altman was fired, Mira was named CEO, and a 52-page memo and a string of 2:30am texts sat right at the center of it. I walk you through what we know, what we still don't, and what came out under oath. I finish on her next act, Thinking Machines Lab, the record-breaking raise, the talent exodus, and why, out of my four Gs, I think one of them explains her better than the rest. Come find out which one. In the Blink of AI is made possible by our wonderful partnersDeelFounders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders. It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast. Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone ✨ Connect with Georgie HealyWeekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/ The Day One NetworkIn The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors. Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletter

    Mira Murati, the Quiet Superpower in the AI Race
  7. 7/07

    What's Your Moat When AI Can Copy Your Product in 48 Hours? | Dilip Jacob from Pitchberry

    Dilip Jacob is the solo founder and CEO of Pitchberry, an AI platform that helps people in high-stakes professions practice the conversations their careers depend on. The idea came from a very personal place: diagnosed with high anxiety, Dilip froze during an investment pitch and went looking for a way to get better. What began as a tool for founders found an unexpected first market in dentistry, where internationally trained dentists must pass a communication-heavy exam to work in Australia. Pitchberry now has 300+ users. This episode is a masterclass in the decisions every early-stage founder faces. Dilip and Alan work through how to find a co-founder without rushing into the wrong partnership, why the language you use changes how convincing you sound, and whether to raise capital or bootstrap when you already have paying customers in sight. Alan also breaks down the four things every founder needs before they're investible, including the one most solo founders never fix. Stick around for the last section, where Alan tackles the question keeping most AI founders up at night: what counts as a defensible moat when anyone can rebuild your product in 48 hours? His answer, user context and brand relationship, might change how you think about your entire product strategy. Timestamps 02:30 – How Pitchberry was born from Dilip's own struggle with pitch anxiety 04:00 – The professions that rely on credibility: doctors, dentists, lawyers, police and founders 05:30 – Why dentistry became Pitchberry's unexpected first market 06:15 – The go-to-market model: free practices, paid subscriptions and token costs 07:30 – Pivoting from individual users to selling into institutions and academies 09:00 – The challenges of being a solo founder and reaching out for a co-founder 10:00 – How small language changes make you sound more convincing to any audience 11:30 – Why a co-founder relationship is harder than a marriage, and how to date first 13:30 – Where to find co-founders: YC's co-founder matching and networking events 15:00 – Should you raise funding or bootstrap? The case for staying in control 18:00 – Why bootstrapped Aussie success stories like Atlassian and Campaign Monitor matter 20:00 – The four things every founder needs to be investible 22:00 – What counts as a defensible moat now that AI can replicate any product 25:00 – Why user context and brand relationship are the real moats in the age of AI Sponsors:Pick My Brain is supported by our wonderful sponsors:Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders. It’s why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast. Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone ___ Galah Cyber offers Application Security Assessment Get a clear, ten-minute snapshot of your AppSec maturity across the five core principles. Fast, practical insights you can act on straight away at https://www.galahcyber.com.au/assess The Day One NetworkPick My Brain is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new and upcoming shows. The only content we create is content that will help Australian founders. Mentioned in this episode: 5 I’s of Application Security Assessment Get a clear, ten-minute snapshot of your AppSec maturity across the five core principles. Fast, practical insights you can act on straight away at galahcyber.com.au/assess. Deel x PX_Script 2 Deel x PX_Script 1

    What's Your Moat When AI Can Copy Your Product in 48 Hours? | Dilip Jacob from Pitchberry

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