Today’s conversation is with Peter Hazlehurst, the CEO and co founder of Synctera, the company that just acquired my company, Cable. 

Peter has a fascinating story, having grown up in Australia and teaching himself to code as part of his “gap year” job working for the government, before traveling to Silicon Valley and landing a job building a core banking system. Many tech jobs later, including stints at Google and Uber, he is now building Synctera, which could in many ways could also be described as a core banking system. 

One of the themes of our conversation were the lessons that we can teach our children, and we covered:

• How an interaction with the conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra when he was 14 years old gave Peter a life philosophy that has stuck with him since
• How being lazy can unlock near-endless opportunities
• Peter’s core belief that if you build something, you have a responsibility to make sure that, as far as possible, people can’t do bad stuff with it
• How the secret to making B2B businesses successful is the relationships built over many years
• Lessons on managing teams learnt from Google
• The similarities of the dot come bubble and today’s AI hype cycle
• How startup life influences parenting styles

Listen along to hear more from Peter, and for a chance to reflect on your own early life lessons. I hope you enjoy the conversation! 

00:00 Introduction and Acquisition Announcement

00:31 Peter's Childhood and the Influence of Music on his Life

11:30 First Job and Teaching Himself to Code

18:06 Moving to the US and Jumping on the Startup Train

21:29 How Startup Life Influences Parenting

24:43 Leadership Lessons from Google

26:33 The Through-line of Payments, the Origins of Synctera and the Importance of Building Relationships

38:10 Acquiring Cable