Curious Worldview

Will Marshall is the CEO and Co-Founder of Planet.

Planet own and operate a fleet of (200+) satellites which image daily, the entire world.

Planet’s ultimate ambition is to achieve a queryable earth. 

The way you might ask Google what the population of Australia is, you’d be able to ask Planet any conceivable question you might have about the surface of the world. The way Google would refer to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for an answer to the countries population, Planet will refer your query to their data, millions and millions of indexed images of the planet’s surface to present you an answer.

The applications of this are huge.

Take economic intelligence as an example… all types of queries that could summon early indicators of movements that aren’t already priced in.

• For instance, as an early prediction of retail sales you could ask; How many cars are in Walmart parking lots across America right now? Or even, over the past 3 months, what’s the daily average number been?
• Which Chinese ports are seeing more or less traffic than they usually might since the 2026 Iran war began?

And then there’s uses for climate and the environment.

• I could ask, at what rate is a specific glacier retreating? Measure this season’s melt against each other year to date.
• Monitoring and acting upon overfishing in protected zones.
• Or as I ask Will in the interview, could Planet’s data be more accurate at early predictions regarding where an Australian bushfire season might be worst hit

You can imagine the applications for agriculture but as well, naturally, Planet’s data is also crucial for defence.

• Will comment’s on Planet’s data indicating very early the Russian buildup of activity closing in on a Ukraine border.
• And I caught Will just day’s after the 2026 war with Iran, a conflict where Planet’s data is also in use.

Will Marshall an incredible entrepreneur, but as you’ll see in the interview, he also has extensive interests beyond just those of his business.

Marshall’s PHD advisor was Sir Roger Penrose. He worked at NASA. He was on the team that discovered large quantities of water ice on the moon. He co-invented a space debris collision avoidance method using ground-based lasers. Will has lived in communal housing for 20 years. He’s a Brit abroad in America and is now the CEO of a company not only ambitioning for all the queryable stuff mentioned above, but as well is now partnered with both Google and Nvidia to explore the potential for data centres in space.

It’s a enormous pleasure to welcome to Will Marshall to the podcast.

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• Rampart
• The Chairman's Lounge
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• Investigative Journalists
• Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering
• Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development
• Explorers & Adventurers

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Who is Joe Aston?

For my Australian audience, you'll likely know him from his debut book The Chairman's Lounge, a forensic and damning account of Qantas. But for anyone international, put simply, Joe is among Australia's most consequential journalists.

He took over the Australian Financial Review's Rear Window column at just 28, and across a twelve-year tenure transformed it into the most anticipated daily column in Australian business and politics. 

His former editor called it journalism "like never before seen in Australia and arguably the world." 

Joe's reporting contributed to the downfall of the CPA Australia CEO and board, the resignation of Rio Tinto's chairman, Alan Joyce's early exit from Qantas, and a long list of uncomfortable reckoning in between.

In and amongst the many themes that this podcast covers, the most consistent among them has been journalism and good journalists. 

And I say that because I think I caught Joe at an interesting juncture in his life. In the last twelve months Joe’s gone independent. Leaving the security of the AFR to launch his own media company, Rampart. 

The work is the same. Breaking the stories from business and politics that his readers have come to expect, but the model is new, and it puts Joe in unfamiliar territory as an entrepreneur which I think is another example of how media business models are being re-cast, and indicative of the direction the best talent is heading towards. 

We recorded this about ten months into the Rampart journey. We cover his influences, his early years in PR, his personal battles, Rampart and throughout it all, what Joe judges to be, good journalism. 

Timestamps with Joe Aston

00:00 Introduction To Joe
02:06 Joe’s Influences
08:01 Alcoholism
14:54 From The Rear Window To Rampart
33:59 Journalistic Courage and Ethical Boundaries
44:04 Lessons from PR and Corporate Life
54:49 Goals for Rampart and Future Media Innovation
01:08:06 Serendipity

• War & Wheat - Dennis Voznesenski
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• Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering
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• Explorers & Adventurers
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Dennis Voznesenski is an Australian analyst who has spent his career deep in the world of global agriculture. He is the author of 'War & Wheat'.

In this conversation, Dennis explains how geopolitical forces, from trade wars to energy policy, ripple through agricultural markets in ways that are difficult to predict but impossible to ignore. 

We discuss the unique position of Australian farmers, who compete on the global stage without the subsidies that prop up producers in the US, Europe, and beyond. The unbelievable masses of production. The efficiency of it. How the America's are basically where it all comes from. We get into why farmers are increasingly investing in on-farm storage as a strategic response to volatile markets, how infrastructure gaps in developing regions are holding back enormous agricultural potential, and the tension between the push for greater productivity and the long-term sustainability of the land itself. 

Dennis also walks us through how historical events provide essential context for understanding where agricultural markets are heading today, and helps explain the current moment through the lens of agriculture. 

Timstamps.

00:00 The Global Landscape of Agriculture
12:11 Insights from the Agricultural Industry
24:38 The Role of Technology and Innovation
31:22 The Impact of Global Events on Agriculture
52:56 Future Prospects and Opportunities

• Jeff Farrell 'Cocaine Diaries' 
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When Irish journalist Jeff Farrell arrived in Venezuela during the Chávez years as a Latin American correspondent, he couldn't have chanced a more serendipitous encounter that lead to one of the most harrowing stories he'd ever tell. That encounter was with the Irish drug mule, Paul Keeney, and his story that followed became the bestselling book, 'Cocaine Diaries', which pulls back the curtain on the nightmarish reality of Venezuela's prison system: the corruption, the violence, the abuse and the absurdity.

Jeff discusses the extraordinary risks facing foreign correspondents trying to report from Venezuela today, where journalists are turned back at the airport and armed civilian militias called 'colectivos' who patrol the streets. We discuss his forthcoming novel 'Last Call of Caracas', which he's been writing for eight years and life imitated art a bit early in this case because by sheer coincidence, the novel ruptures to a scene of the US attacking Venezuela 

Throughout it all, Jeff reflects on a country he clearly loves but can no longer safely visit—and holds onto hope that one day, when the regime falls and the diaspora returns, he might get to write something positive about Venezuela for a change.

Timestamps

00:00 Jeff Farrell & The Story
03:00 The Risks of Reporting from Venezuela
06:13 The Challenges of Foreign Correspondence
09:03 Life Under a Regime of Fear
11:59 The Complexities of Venezuelan Society
14:57 The Impact of Corruption and Socialism
18:12 The Beauty and Paradox of Venezuela
21:06 The Geography and Demographics of Venezuela
24:04 The Journey of a Foreign Correspondent
27:07 The Serendipitous Encounter with Paul Keeney
44:27 A Journey into the Venezuelan Prison System
51:47 Serendipity and the Book Deal
54:07 Paul Keeney's Life and Struggles
01:00:22 The Harsh Realities of Venezuelan Prisons
01:08:14 Escape from Venezuela
01:13:54 The Aftermath of the Book and Future Plans
01:18:04 Reflections on Journalism and Human Experience

• International Intrigue - Newsletter
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Previous guests on the podcast similar to this!

• Robert Kaplan - A World In Crisis

Podcast Starter Packs

• Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering
• Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development
• Explorers & Adventurers
• Investigative Journalists

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Jeremy Dicker is a co-founder of International Intrigue, a daily geopolitics newsletter delivered to over 150,000 inboxes worldwide.

Before entrepreneurship, Jeremy spent 14 years as an Australian diplomat, with postings in both Latin and North America, Peru, Mexico and LA specifically.

International Intrigue was born during London lockdown when Jeremy and his co-founders (fellow former diplomats) jumped on the new media of newsletter’s nascent industry and decided to write to make geopolitics accessible, witty, and funny

Jeremey boasts that the writers from ‘The Diplomat’ read the newsletter which is a huge flex given just how good that TV show is. 

Jeremy and his team published a 25 predictions for 2026 article just a few weeks ago and that’s exactly what we go through on todays episode. 

Timestamps

00:00 - Jeremy & International Intrigue
01:01 - Taiwan & Global Disorder
11:35 - Prediction 1: Europe's Reliance on the US
21:09 - Prediction 2: Cryptocurrency's Mainstream Adoption
28:22 - Prediction 3: Nuclear Energy and Tech Giants
33:13 - Prediction 4:AI and the Bubble Debate
39:59 - Prediction 5: Russia Ukraine
42:44 - Prediction 6: The Pink Tide: Shifts in Latin American Politics
58:24 Prediction 7: Climate Change
01:08:32 - Diplomacy and National Interests: Balancing Values and Policies
01:09:03 - Prediction 8: BRICS vs Quad
01:15:12 - US Foreign Policy and Global Dynamics
01:19:11 - Diplomatic Challenges Under Trump
01:26:12 - Prediction 9: The Future of the UN and Global Governance
01:30:02 - Prediction 10: China's Technological Ascendancy
01:34:53 - Australia's Role in Global Affairs

• The Elements of Power - Nicolas Niarchos
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Previous guests on the podcast similar to this!

• Nicolas Niarchos First Appearance On The Pod
• Tim Butcher - Blood River (CLASSIC EP)
• Adam Hochschild - King Leopold's Ghost
• Jon Lee Anderson - New Yorker Staff Writer, A Life Of Adventure

Podcast Starter Packs

• Offshore Finance/Kleptocracy & Money Laundering
• Geopolitics/Economics/Economic Development
• Explorers & Adventurers
• Investigative Journalists

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In this episode, New Yorker journalist Nicolas Niarchos discusses the supply chains behind the clean energy transition from child miners and Chinese-owned mega-mines to the coming global scramble for critical minerals.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating his new book, and I reckon it is tailor made for this podcast. It’s the history of cobalt it’s extraction and it’s applications and shows how a single mineral has reshaped geopolitics, powered the rise of China’s technological superiority, and further locked millions of Congolese into one of the most brutal extraction economies on earth.

This is a story that begins with King Leopold the second the original plunder of the Congo but then runs through Cold War dictatorships and kleptocracy, and ends with Apple, Tesla, BYD, and the race to dominate the future of energy.

It’s Nic’s second appearance on this podcast on a similar subject, therefore we avoided to go-over all the same ground as last time. The first episode was about his New Yorker piece on artisanal mining in the Congo, his arrest in the Congo and the foundations for his worldview in covering this issue.

Today we go into his new book. Inside the mines of Katanga, inside the rise of China’s battery empire, inside the corruption that still governs Congo’s political system, and inside the coming resource wars that will define the next half-century.

• Eighty percent of the world’s cobalt now comes from the Congo.
• Most of it is controlled by Chinese companies.
• As much as 20% of it is still dug out of the ground by hand.
• Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, is expected to have 40,000,000 people by 2050.

And the world is about to need more of what’s beneath their feet than ever before.

On The Trail Of Genghis Khan - Tim Cope (Book)

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Previous guests on the podcast similar to this!

Jack Weatherford - Genghis Khan & The Making Of The Modern World

Robyn Davidson - Australian Living Legend. Documenter Of Nomads.

Jon Lee Anderson - New Yorker Staff Writer, A Life Of Adventure.

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Tim Cope underwent a three year journey traversing the entire Eurasian steppe, starting in Karakorum, the old Mongolian capital, westwards through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and finally Hungary until he reached the Danube river. 

The journey took him three years to complete and 4 horses. He picked up a dog along the way, and his journey saw him robbed, threatened, welcomed and exposed to murderous heat and cold.

I first wrote to Tim 4 years ago… so we’ve maintained a very spotty correspondence in anticipation for today. 

Tim Cope is is an Australian adventurer, author, filmmaker, photographer, expedition guide - a fluent Russian speaker - a bloody good writer and someone generous enough to offer me their time and invite me into their home here in rural Victoria. 

Timestamps.

00:00 - Tim Cope
02:50 - The Magic Of The Steppe
10:10 - Tim's Coma & Writing
13:15 - Tim's Backstory
24:50 - On The Trail Of Genghis Khan
33:01 - The Eurasian Steppe
37:41 - The Decline Of Nomadic Cultures
46:27 - Entering Into Kazakhstan & Finding A Dog
1:02:55 - Tim's Growing Reputation On The Steppe
1:10:50 - Alcoholism On The Steppe
1:19:12 - Abandoned Goldmine For The Winter
1:38:45 - Prostitution 
1:50:00 - Tim's Father Passing Away
2:05:46 - Hungary
2:12:30 - The Problem Of Fitting Back In
2:24:50 - Success & Book Publishing
2:31:00 - How Mongolia Has Changed
2:44:10 - Tim's Evolving Thoughts On Both Russia & Ukraine

The Men Who Killed The News (Book)

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Eric Beecher is a veteran journalist, editor and entrepreneur whose experienced first hand the dramatic evolution of the previous 40 years of media. 

From broadsheet’s to TV to the internet to facebook, podcasts, now AI. Eric has been across all these, both an employee and employer as the business models were repeatedly shaken and recast. 

And he asks, what is the cumulative damage when owners of journalism place profits and power over civic responsibility and decency. 

That book is called, ‘The Men Who Killed The News’ and series a history of media moguldom, the perennial story of power and influence chipping away ever so gradually, the role good journalism esteems in helping us make sense of the world. It’s not nostalgia for the good old days, but rather an attempt to understand how we got here, and whether there is anything that can be done about it.

Eric was formerly the youngest editor at the Sydney Morning Herald before being recruited by Murdoch himself to run at the time, his latest media acquisition, before resigning sighting ethical differences. 

Eric runs today alongside his colleagues, Crikey, The Mandarin and SmartCompany. Eric is a major architect of modern Australian independent media, and it is my pleasure to welcome him to the podcast. 

Gareth Gore | Unveiling The Conspiracy Of Opus Dei (his first appearance)

Gareth Gore - Opus (Amazon)

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This is Gareth’s second appearance on the podcast. 

It is the political fallout from everything covered in our first episode where he told the story for how he serendipitously uncovered Opus Dei’s hidden power and financial manipulation while investigating the ruins of the Spanish bank, Banco Popular. 

It began as a routine story but evolved into the discovery of a global network of manipulation, coercive recruitment, psychological abuse, and enormous financial flows routed through myriad opaque foundations. Gareth spoke about how Opus Dei maintains a polished, benign public image, but secretly operates an inner core of numeraries—members bound by vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty—who are tightly controlled, isolated, and monitored.

It’s systematic practices include corporal mortification, constant surveillance, abuse, both emotional and physical and the exploitation of vulnerable young women tantamount to human trafficking. Opus Dei used Banco Popular as a piggy bank for decades, funnelling money through shell foundations and offshore channels to fund their impressive global expansion.

This is a Direct quote from Gareth’s first appearance… “This is an organisation that seeks to re-Christianize of the entire world… Opus Dei is informed by a warped, distorted, conservative, radical reading of the Bible. It embeds itself in key institutions, especially in the United States. and Despite its Vatican legitimacy, Opus Dei uses secrecy and corporate structures to evade accountability. 

A probe into Gideon Haigh's worldview, someone I've anticipated interviewing ever since this podcast began. 

Some highlights from the podcast.

• On cricket: “Cricket marches backwards into the future — always haunted by its past.”
• On Warne: “He had perfect superficiality and the gift of putting everyone at ease.”
• On journalism: “Legacy media has become mindlessly negative. If they can’t own it, they destroy it.”
• On new media: “It’s amazingly empowering to write something and press publish — no intermediaries, no gatekeepers.”
• On India: “India has become the gravitational centre of world cricket — a nation full of gods, and some of them play cricket.”
• On memory: “Memory is a slippery thing — journalists are constantly trying to pin it down, trusting it when it suits us, interrogating it when it doesn’t.”

Gideon is a veteran journalist, author and the most eclectic cricket writer alive today. He has prolific output. He’s published more than 50 books and thousands of articles scoping a gamut of topics. Work, bureaucracy, the office, Australian crime, banks, business, scandals, cricket, cricket history, cricket politics, media, journalism, biography, memoir, and too many more to rattle off. 

Check out the video of this one (Spotify or Youtube). The decor is a very on the nose projection for Gideon's aforementioned interests. Lining opposite walls are two imposing floor to ceiling bookshelves eyeing each down for Gideons attention. Behind him a shrine to cricket and across from him a shrine to the rest. 

Gideon is also the co-host, alongside Peter Lalor, the wonderful Substack and podcast - Cricket Et Al. 

If you like Cricket than you’ll love Cricket Et Al.

... a few quotes from Gideon in the interview to leave you with.

• "I've always thought journalism was a great vehicle for curiosity"
• “Contemporaneous documentation — that which was created at the time — is the closest thing we have to truth.”
• “Part of the romance of archives is finding them — going to see the thing that no one else has looked at.”
• “We are too easily satisfied with low-hanging fruit. I believe strongly in delayed gratification.”
• “An inquest is like a lightning flash — it illuminates everything in its surroundings for a moment before vanishing.”
• “If the record spoke for itself, it wouldn’t need interpretation.”
• “A good historian has humility. They know they can’t tell the whole thing, but they do their best.”
• “It’s not imagination that’s rare, it’s perseverance.”
• “I’m interested in delighting readers, not just informing them.”
• “The minute I stop getting better, I’ll stop doing it.”
• “Journalism should be a vehicle for curiosity, not defensiveness.”
• “I’ve always thought the best journalism comes from knowing who really pulls the strings.”
• “The site, the Substack — it’s a hungry beast. It requires constant replenishment.”
• “I’m not just writing to be read. I’m writing to find out what I think.”
• “I dislike the term ‘non-fiction’ — defining something by what it’s not.”
• “Legacy media is in long-term decline. They can’t own new ideas — so they’d rather destroy them.”
• “The barriers to entry have never been lower. The barriers to making a living have never been higher.”
• “Cricket is a game that marches backward into the future — every feat echoes those that came before.”
• “Test cricket is romantic love; T20 is carnal love.”