The SME Stream

CMC Markets managing director Chris Smith joins Liam Dann to talk about the investing bug that started when he was 16, why New Zealand has historically favoured property over shares, and the mistakes that taught him the most.

He also discusses market crashes, AI investment, KiwiSaver, our appetite for risk and why he believes simply earning a salary may not be enough to build the wealth needed for retirement.

Money Talks is brought to you by CMC Markets

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The appetite for New Zealand’s golden visa continues to grow. 

Since the rules were relaxed last April, $4.845 billion has either been committed or added to the investment pipeline – from more than 700 applications.  

InvestNZ is also changing tack – refining its overseas roadshow to create a more targeted approach. 

CEO Robert Wall told Mike Hosking the Active Investor Plus programme is simply about getting investment into growing Kiwi businesses to the benefit of Kiwis. 

He says their focus is on getting the best out of those applicants, and making sure their investments are going into productive parts of New Zealand.  

LISTEN ABOVE  

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A new report finds the funding of aged residential care is not keeping up with the cost of providing it.  

The Westpac NZ report investigates what challenges and opportunities service providers could face in the future.  

It finds, with an aging population, people will require more complex and costly care.   

Westpac economist Paul Clark told Mike Hosking the biggest cost is labour, which made up around 70% of operating costs. 

He says that highly specialised labour is needed, and as more older people move into aged care facilities, they need higher and higher quality care, which requires better and better labour.  

LISTEN ABOVE  

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What is it that high performing CEOs, sports stars, and leaders all have in common? James Laughlin knows.

James is a leadership speaker, executive coach, and author of the best selling book 'Habits of High Performers' and believes anyone can become a high performer with the right attitude and belief system. 

In the episode, James tells Toni about the habits that the most successful people in society all share, how anyone can become a high performer no matter their background, and why he believes success all comes down to the 'top two inches'.

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Today on the podcast, I speak with Zoë Williams, co-founder of Zoe & Morgan, a consciously created jewellery brand she runs alongside her siblings, Ruth and Morgan.

For 20 years, Zoe & Morgan have been crafting jewellery that celebrates connections and stories,  showcasing a vibrant and fully-fledged expression of craftsmanship, individuality, and connection

We talk about:

🤍  The foundations and values that guide every decision
👪  What it takes to build a family-led business with your siblings
🌿  Honouring craftsmanship and connection
🏠  Balancing motherhood and growth
✨  What success really means to her

I adored talking with Zoë. This was such a thoughtful and gentle conversation, Zoe is so genuine and so generous with her time and her story.

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The engineer who helped make GitHub Copilot a global force is building its open alternative from Christchurch

For millions of software developers, GitHub Copilot was the moment artificial intelligence stopped being an abstract promise and became a practical colleague.

Suddenly, AI could sit in the coding environment, suggest the next line, explain unfamiliar code and help turn an idea into working software. It changed expectations of what a developer tool could do, and opened the door to a new generation of AI coding agents.

Igor Costa was there as that shift gathered pace.

The Brazilian-born, Christchurch-based founder of Autohand held senior engineering roles across Microsoft, GitHub and AWS, and played a pivotal role in the development and deployment of GitHub Copilot. 

It is an experience that gave him a close-up view of the potential of AI-assisted software development and of the trade-offs that come with putting powerful capabilities in the hands of a small number of global technology platforms.

Now Costa is building an alternative from New Zealand.

His startup, Autohand, is developing AI agents designed to take on more of the repetitive, time-consuming work involved in building and maintaining software. It also treats software as constantly evolving code that refactors itself automatically, avoiding going out of date and becoming a security risk.

But the company’s proposition is not simply that AI should write more code, or work faster. It is that businesses should retain control over the technology doing that work.

That is why Autohand has embraced open source, releasing its code and building around open-source models. For Costa, the issue is one of sovereignty as much as capability. A company using AI to understand its systems, access its codebase and act across its engineering workflow needs to know where its data is going, how its tools behave and what degree of control it can retain.

The market for AI coding tools is becoming crowded, well-funded and increasingly dominated by proprietary platforms. Costa’s bet is that a different model can succeed: powerful AI agents that are transparent, adaptable and deployable in ways that suit the organisations using them.

In this episode of The Business of Tech, Costa talks about the formative years of GitHub Copilot, why he chose to build a company from Christchurch, and why he believes the next phase of software development will be shaped not only by what AI can do, but by who owns and controls it.

It is a conversation about code, autonomy and the possibility that New Zealand can play a meaningful role in building the AI tools of the future.

Listen to the latest episode of The Business of Tech with Igor Costa, founder of Autohand, streaming on iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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