Making the Cut

Making the Cut
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  • Entrepreneurship
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Making the Cut, hosted by Jim Cooper and James Yang, takes you inside the collision between technology, policy and capital shaping the future of startups. Each week, Jim and James go head to head on the stories that matter, from AI disrupting entire industries to the regulation battles that will decide who gets to build what, and where. This isn't a podcast that reads you the tech news. Jim brings decades of experience across political science, innovation policy and venture capital. James is a founder building in the trenches of AI and software right now. They disagree often, challenge each other directly and never settle for surface-level takes. If you're a founder trying to figure out how AI changes your business model, an investor looking for the signal in the noise, or someone who wants to understand how policy, markets and technology actually connect, this is the show. Every episode covers what happened, why it matters and what to do about it. No fluff. No scripts. Just two people who care deeply about where Australia and the world is heading in tech, and aren't afraid to say what they actually think. New episodes weekly.

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    America Bombed Shadows, Iran Won Without an Army, and 50 People Can Win a War

    Jim Cooper is a political scientist, innovation policy expert and now venture capital advisor with decades of experience across frontier technology, defence and commercialisation. James Yang is the Co-founder of KYZON Solutions, building AI-native workspace and sovereign AI infrastructure products for SMBs and regulated industries across APAC. In this special episode, Jim and James put Sun Tzu's Art of War against modern conflict and end up somewhere neither of them expected. James opens by arguing that no rules survive contact with a war, working through the Geneva Conventions, non-state actors, black sites and what Australian special forces did in Afghanistan. Jim answers with a university assignment on collective security, the George Price equation, and a three-state experiment in which the countries that disarmed came out roughly three times better than the ones that armed. From there the conversation turns to Iran: how a country with a fraction of America's military spending built enough leverage to negotiate from strength without a conventional military, why Jim thinks aircraft carriers and big navies are no longer the deterrent they were, and what an oil bourse priced in euros would do to the market. They work through Vietnam and the most famous line of that war, the maths of how much bombing a country can absorb, why decapitation strikes have never worked, and a deception campaign that had a superpower dropping ordnance on wooden aircraft and painted shadows. James changes his mind on air. The episode closes on what happens when the tools of war get cheap enough that fifty people with laptops and 3D printers matter more than mass. Timestamps: [00:00] "Iran negotiated America into a corner. And won." [00:07] Intro [00:29] Do ethics survive contact with a war? [03:32] Why every country needs a deterrent [04:17] The George Price equation, and an assignment on collective security [06:16] "Better outcomes by an order of three" [08:07] Iran, the strait, and leverage without a war [11:02] What Sun Tzu actually said [11:18] James pushes back. The missing enriched uranium [13:17] Universal healthcare or B-2 bombers [15:13] A hundred thousand cheap missiles on a shoestring budget [18:30] An oil bourse priced in euros [19:19] Fifty years of leverage instead of a military [21:28] "You never defeated us on the battlefield." "True. And also irrelevant." [23:44] Poisson distribution, buzz bombs, and how much you can absorb [25:57] Cost per flight hour, and there are only twenty of them [26:52] Why decapitation strikes have never worked [29:45] Iran painted shadows on the tarmac. America bombed them [30:52] Where James changes his mind [34:01] The doctrine of mass, the Fulda Gap and MAD [37:17] "How many wars has America won on its own? Ever." [39:03] Still living in the long twentieth century [42:03] Fifty people and a 3D printer Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/16jy2Th6ES9uyfge4saltn?si=950d93992dec443e Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-the-cut/id1895846511 Follow Jim Cooper on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spyfor/ Follow James Yang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesyang8/ #makingthecut #jimcooper #jamesyang #suntzu #artofwar #geopolitics #iran #militarystrategy #gametheory #deterrence #asymmetricwarfare

  2. Apr 29

    SaaS Is Dying, Jobs Are Fake, and Australia Won't Build

    Jim Cooper is a political scientist, innovation policy expert and now venture capital advisor with decades of experience across frontier technology, defence and commercialisation. James Yang is the Co-founder of KYZON Solutions, building AI-native workspace and sovereign AI infrastructure products for SMBs and regulated industries across APAC. ---------------------------------------- In this episode, Jim and James debate whether the SaaS business model is dying as IPO activity returns without a single major SaaS listing in sight. They unpack the Atlassian layoffs, where a company growing at 23% on $1.6 billion in revenue still cut 1,600 people to free up $236 million annually, and what that signals about per-seat pricing in an AI world. The conversation shifts to HSBC's plan to cut 20,000 roles and whether AI is actually replacing real work or just exposing the "b******t jobs" that were never needed in the first place. They then go head to head on Roblox and Australia's under-16 social media ban, asking whether regulation is killing innovation or creating an unfair advantage for Australian founders willing to build compliant platforms before the rest of the world catches up. The episode closes on oil price shocks rippling through startup economics and a rapid fire round covering Atlassian's 12-month outlook, the death of per-seat pricing, Canva's NASDAQ move and whether Australia can break past 1% of global VC deployment before 2030. ---------------------------------------- Timestamps: [00:00] Intro [01:12] SaaS IPOs have vanished. Is the model dead? [08:45] Atlassian cuts 1,600 jobs while growing 23%. What's going on? [15:30] Terence Tao on AI as the ultimate idea generator [19:40] 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail. Why the 5% matters more [22:15] HSBC cutting 20,000 roles. David Graeber's B******t Jobs thesis [27:00] The Industrial Revolution parallel. Are we ready for this speed? [31:45] Roblox under fire. Should it be included in Australia's social media ban? [38:20] Can you moderate live voice in real-time gaming worlds? [44:10] Regulation as unfair advantage. The founder opportunity most people miss [52:30] Australia's innovation ecosystem. What's broken and what's not [56:00] Oil price shock. What $8 diesel means for early-stage startups [59:15] Quickfire: Atlassian, per-seat pricing, Canva's IPO, Australia's VC future ---------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/16jy2Th6ES9uyfge4saltn?si=950d93992dec443e Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-the-cut/id1895846511 Follow Jim Cooper on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spyfor/ Follow James Yang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesyang8/ ---------------------------------------- #makingthecut #jimcooper #jamesyang #saas #ai #atlassian #roblox #australia #startups #venturecapital #innovation #techpolicy

  • 2 Episodes

About

Making the Cut, hosted by Jim Cooper and James Yang, takes you inside the collision between technology, policy and capital shaping the future of startups. Each week, Jim and James go head to head on the stories that matter, from AI disrupting entire industries to the regulation battles that will decide who gets to build what, and where. This isn't a podcast that reads you the tech news. Jim brings decades of experience across political science, innovation policy and venture capital. James is a founder building in the trenches of AI and software right now. They disagree often, challenge each other directly and never settle for surface-level takes. If you're a founder trying to figure out how AI changes your business model, an investor looking for the signal in the noise, or someone who wants to understand how policy, markets and technology actually connect, this is the show. Every episode covers what happened, why it matters and what to do about it. No fluff. No scripts. Just two people who care deeply about where Australia and the world is heading in tech, and aren't afraid to say what they actually think. New episodes weekly.

Information

  • Creator
    Making the Cut
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Making the Cut
  • Show Website
    Making the Cut