Matt Allen is the founder of Tractor Ventures, a revenue based financing company that provides an alternative to traditional venture capital for technology startups. He is also a prolific angel investor, having invested in over a dozen startups and has achieved an IRR of over 50%. He previously worked at Amazon Web Services, co-founded a number of companies and spent his early days working in software development.

Our conversation with him ranged from talking about what he gained in his early career in technology, his method of angel investing, why he felt it was important to start Tractor Ventures and the trends in software companies he is currently witnessing.

Book: Turn the ship around

Podcast: The Startup Playbook

Kirstin Hunter is a co-founder of the super company Future Super, which manages over $900m of assets. Future Super focuses on creating a world without climate change and inequality, so they invest their assets into sustainable companies and ignore fossil fuels and harmful companies.

Before Future Super she worked in management consulting at Bain & Co for six years and was also a solicitor at Freehills for two years. Kirstin studied arts/medicine/law at UNSW.

Our conversation ranged on the topics of Kirstins years at university, what she learnt working in the corporate world, how her passions developed towards social justice and sustainability and her journey of co-founding Future Super.

Book: The Great Gatsby. 

Podcast: Masters of Scale. 

Inspirational Figure: Jacinda Ardern. 

This week we sat down with each other to reflect on our lives and discuss some of the topics we are currently interested in. We spoke about our favourite  guests on the podcasts, how we’ve both developed over the last few years, NFTs, decentralisation and new technologies. We then turned to discussing our future goals, learnings from university and how we want to be living in our 20s.

This episode also marks the launch of our website: https://www.sachin-and-adam-show.com/

Phil Moffitt was a partner at Goldman Sachs for 20 years before starting the impact investment firm, Beckon Capital. In this episode we discussed Phil’s upbringing and his journey to the biggest prize on Wall Street. We then dived deep into his study of psychology and his reasons for co-founding Beckon Capital and the firms philosophy, diving deep into 'impact 3.0'. We finished off discussing his advice for future leaders and as always finished off with a quick fire round of questions

Show notes:

https://beckon.capital/

Book: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Podcast: The Jolly Swagman Podcast

Hobbies: Surfing, Sail, Skiing.

Harry Guinness is CEO and co-founder of Australia's newest think tank, the Blueprint Institute. The Blueprint Institute "exists to inspire reform with bold ideas, honest conversations and evidence-based research". 

Before starting Blueprint, Harry had a wide-ranging career that saw him playing professional rugby for the Brumbies, studying at Oxford, working in the Attorney General's office focusing on countering violent extremism and working as a foreign policy adviser to Julie Bishop. 

We discussed with Harry the lessons he's learnt from his extraordinary career, why he decided to start a think tank and the political issues that he is most passionate about. 

Book mentioned: The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle 

Podcast mentioned: The Argument - NY Times

Peter Corbett is a partner at Deloitte, the Sydney head of Monitor Deloitte and is Deloitte's National Telecommunications Sector Leader. He's been advising companies on strategic business decisions at Deloitte for over 15 years. Before that he worked at Macquarie Bank and started a number of companies. 

We talked to Peter about why strategy is important in business and how to think strategically, long-term strategic narratives for media, telco and tech businesses and some advice for students in their 20's. 

Books/Podcasts mentioned: 

Playing to Win- Alan G. Lafley and Roger Martin

The Pyramid Principle- Barbara Minto

Masters in Business- Bloomberg 

This week we sat down with the ever inspiring Rohit Bhargava. Rohit’s podcast ‘The Startup Playbook’ is ranked number 3 on iTunes and he has interviewed the likes of Malcom Turnbull and Cal Henderson (co-founder Slack). We spoke to Rohit about his experiences with failure, avoiding a linear career path, his learnings from guests and his passions for business. Rohit has had the opportunity to aggregate the wisdom from hundreds of the worlds business leaders and has his own experiences founding diverse businesses. His reflection and insights are extremely relevant for those considering stepping off the beaten track.

Recommendations

Atomic Habits- James Clear

Can’t Hurt Me- David Goggins

Masters of Scale- Reid Hoffman (podcast)

Peter Bruce-Clark is a partner at the venture capital firm Social Impact Capital. Social Impact Capital specialises in impact investing, which are investments that achieve strong financial returns whilst also making social impact in the domains of energy, water, food, health, environment, education, housing, access to capital, and social justice. He also makes angel investments and has previously worked with organisations such as Real Capital Innovation, Kalytix and PwC.

We chatted to him about his career journey, how he identifies great investments and how he combines his vision of social impact with venture investing.

Books and podcasts mentioned: 

Severance - Ling Ma

Masters in Business - Bloomberg 

This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with a visionary that well and truely blew us away, Jack Manning Bancroft. Jack is the founder of AIME, an award-winning social movement that uses mentoring and imagination to unlock the potential of marginalised youth to create a fairer world. Jack has been working on AIME for the last 16 years and in that time created the largest uni student volunteer movement in Australian history, taken 15,000 indigenous students out of inequality and successfully closed the educational gap for each cohort. Our conversation included Jacks vision for the world, how he grew AIME, advice to future change makers and his journey with spirituality. Enjoy!

More about AIME: https://aimementoring.com/

This week's guest was Michael Trail, the co-founder of Macquarie Group's private equity business, Macquarie Direct Investment, and was also the founding CEO of Social Ventures Australia (SVA).  

Currently Michael spends his time as Executive Director at For Purpose Investment Partners, is the Chair of the Paul Ramsey Foundation and is a director at multiple organisations such as Sunsuper, MH Carnegie & Co, and Australian Philanthropic Services.  

Michael details his enormous career across finance, social impact and in non-profit organisations in his book 'Jumping Ship: From the World of Corporate Australia to the Heart of Social Investment'.  

You can get the book here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Jumping-Ship-Corporate-Australia-Investment/dp/1743792573