When AI Grow Up

This episode was recorded on Tuesday 9 December. In it, Dr Mei-Ling Doery refers to "the Bondi massacre," meaning the Bondi Junction attack of April 2024. At the time, we could not have known that another massacre would occur at Bondi Beach that following Sunday. Bondi is a place I once called home, and the closeness of these events is deeply felt.

After careful reflection, we have chosen to release the episode as it was recorded. It was important then — and feels even more important now.

Over the past few months, I've been exploring a question that has become increasingly urgent: Are we in a masculinity crisis — and what lies beneath it?

To explore this, I sat down with Dr Mei-Ling Doery, whose experience spans emergency medicine, public health, elite sport, military health, and strategic advisory. She has treated the consequences of male violence firsthand and understands the cultural and psychological forces shaping this moment.

We discuss:

• The roots of male violence

• Trauma, attachment, and emotional development

• How culture shapes masculinity

• The gap between "good intentions" and "good behaviour"

• What it truly means to be a "good man"

This is a challenging conversation — and a necessary one.

Lee Kuan Yew was the founder of modern-day Singapore. He took Singapore from third world to first in one generation. His candour in analysing other counties such as the UK, US & China is incredibly insightful.

So here is what you are in for the next 45 minutes of your life. I want to look at:

• Who was Lee Kuan Yew? What was the back story to Singapore we see today?
• What were his principles and guiding philosophy of pragmatism and meritocracy?
• Considering Singapore famously had no real assets how does it now rival the US in GDP per capita?
• What did he think about the demise of the UK after WWII, can BREXIT learn from Singapore and the future of the United States.
• Given his position of respect by the Chinese politburo, what can he tell us about China?
• What are the criticisms of his authoritarian control of the state?

In this podcast, I use Will & Ariel Durant's book Lessons from history to examine why there is a tension between freedom and equality.

"Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies."

I look at examples such as Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, John D Rockefeller and Jeff Bezos and question are some people just better equipped to compete for scarce resources than others in a free market or is it due to hereditary privilege.

I question whether freedom in countries such as Australia, USA, UK and Singapore has to decline to ensure equality and examine if anyone has an elegant solution.

I want to dive into the Roman Stoic's and in particular why the believed tranquillity or peace of mind should be an ultimate goal.

First, we need an introduction into the Roman Stoics, second why the goal of tranquillity or peace of mind was deemed so important and finally, I think more importantly I want to share some of the techniques that the stoics practiced for peace of mind. Hopefully given the wild times that we are living in at the moment these tried and tested ancient techniques might be helpful to just one person out there.

What should western organisations consider when thinking about launching in Asian countries? What is it like to be a non-native speaker running Google in Thailand? Why is the digital economy in China accelerating so quickly? Where is Google headed in Machine Learning? How does a sporting career influence building high performing corporate teams? I discuss all this and more with my good friend Ben King. Ben is Country Director of Google Thailand. Ben and I first met at Microsoft in Australia and it has been awesome to watch his journey at Google in South East Asia. We start off with some productivity tricks that help Ben manage a pretty full on schedule, before discussing the role of sport in shaping his team culture at Google. I have found it fascinating to see how Ben is leveraging Google as a force for good in Thailand and how committed he has been to integrate himself in Thai culture. We discuss the importance of having a local market presence and the challenges of the fly in and fly out (FIFO) model for true long-term market penetration. Given Ben's role at Google his insight into the advances in machine learning are super interesting and an area that most people in business today are thinking long and hard about. We delve into the evolution of the Chinese digital economy and who the players to watch out for who will keep it expanding. I think if you want insight into the role technology can play in society, true insight into getting market entry strategies correct in SEA and the shifting dynamics of regional powers you are in for a treat. Please feel free to reach out with any questions through any of my socials @peterostick.