The Sachin and Adam Show

Elicia McDonald is a partner at Airtree Ventures, one of the leading VC funds in Australia (where Sachin used to work). Airtree has invested in many unicorns including Canva, Pet Circle, Immutable, Employment Hero and Linktree. There's a lot to admire about Elicia. She's hyper intelligent, analytical, emotionally intelligent, focuses on the work and has a sharp awareness of what's real...

Joining us, is a former guest, Malcom Turnbull. As most people know him, Malcolm Turnbull was the former Prime Minister of Australia and had an extensive career across law, journalism and has written a number of books. What not as many people know, is that he was one of the early investors of technology companies in Australia and had a large role to play with the development of the startup ecosyst...

This week we sat down with the founder of Hustle Fund, Elizabeth Yin. Hustle Fund is one of the most well known pre-seed brands in the US and has over $100 million of assets under management. In a former life, Elizabeth was an entrepreneur, worked at google and was a partner at 500 startups. We chatted to her about all her career learnings and how she has built such a strong VC brand. 

This week we were joined by one of the most insightful and storied technology leaders Wesley Chan. Wesley started his career as chief of staff to Larry Page and Sergey Brin the Google co-founders. In this role he founded Google Analytics, Google Voice and Google Ventures. Wesley then went on to become the managing director at Felicis ventures before co-founding FPV ventures. We dived into Wesleys...

We talked with Nicole Quinn, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, one of the leading VC firms in the US with over $20 billion of AUM. She focuses on early stage consumer internet companies and has invested in breakout startups like Calm and Cameo. Before this she was the head of US consumer research sales at Morgan Stanley. We chatted about her early life, the influence of her mentor Jeremy L...

This week we were delighted to be joined the legendary Abheek Anand partner at Peak XV (formerly Sequoia). We dived into how Abheek manufacturers luck, founding a company that was acquired by Facebook and becoming a great investor at Sequoia. We also spent some time talking about the future of VC in SEA. Peak XV: https://www.peakxv.com/ This episode is supported by our friends at Employment Hero....

This week we talked with Ben Thompson, who is the founder of unicorn startup Employment Hero. Ben is the first repeat guest on The Sachin and Adam Show and is said by many to be one of the great tech CEO's in Australia. We chatted with Ben about how he has navigated growing his company during the difficult macro environment, some of the new products he's releasing and how he thinks about b...

This week we were delighted to have Jonathan Hsu, co-founder of Tribe Capital. We discussed Jonathans upbringing, background in physics, the invention of data science, takeaways from being a partner at Social Capital and building Tribe. We learnt so much from this conversation and it’s not one to be missed. Tribe Capital: https://tribecap.co/ This episode is supported by our friends at Employment...

This week on the podcast you won't be hearing from us and instead from the folks at The Startup Podcast. This is one of our favourite startup podcasts in Australia because of how tactical it is for founders. We decided to post it on our feed this week. Enjoy! Episode Description We’re all storytellers. It’s the way we first begin to learn and it's the way we have communicated important inf...

This week we interviewed Vinny Pujji, the founder of Left Lane Capital, a NY based venture fund that has over $2 billion USD of assets under management. What's remarkable about Vinny is his accelerated timeline: he left Insight Partners at only 27 years of age to start his firm. We chatted about his background, motivations, investing style and building a VC. This episode is sponsored by our fr...

This week we had the pleasure of talking to Dr Andy Kuper, the founder of LeapFrog Investments. Andy has been a personal hero of ours for a long time showing that you can have profit and purpose at the same time. LeapFrog has reached 250m with its portfolio companies in developing nations whilst performing strongly as a fund. We dug into Andy’s past, impacts of studying philosophy and the journey...

This week we talked with Maxine Minter who will become the first female solo GP in Australia after she started her $10 million pre-seed fund Co ventures! She has had a fascinating journey which saw her going from being a lawyer in Australia to moving to San Fransisco where she went to Stanford, becoming a founder, starting an executive coaching business and now being back in Australia. We talked d...

This week we had the honour of interviewing the amazing Rex Woodbury, partner at Index Ventures and author of Digital Native. We dived deep into Rex’s drivers, family unit, sacrifices and journey into VC. We then explored consumer investing, trends amongst Gen Zs and how Rex identifies the best founders. This isn’t an episode you want to miss. Rex’s newsletter: https://digitalnative.substack.com/...

We were privileged to podcast James Tynan from Square Peg and announce his recent addition to the Square Peg Partnership. James has had an incredible journey which has seen him traverse McKinsey, Khan Academy, Startmate as well as a number of health problems. We talked to James about ambition, how to balance energy, why Square Peg was the place for him, his passion for healthcare and many more top...

This week we were joined by one of our good friends (and one of the best young founders we know) Max Marchione. Max is the founder of Next Chapter and UltraViolet Ventures and is currently founding a health-tech startup in stealth. We got into Max’s 100 year goals, how we’ve all changed as people, creativity/intuition and discussions around life as a founder and VC. Enjoy This episode is sponsored...

This is a special episode dedicated to the South East Asia Region. We interviewed Peter Huynh of Qualgro and Tushar Roy of Square Peg Capital. They are both Australians who are living in Singapore, spending their time investing in early stage technology companies across South East Asia. We talked about the opportunity that South East Asia presents, how to think about the region and the differences...

This week we were joined by Afterwork Principal Jessy Wu. Jessy has built a standout brand in Australia through her unique takes and contrarian views. We dived into Jessy’s upbringing, the power of controvery and branding as a super power. We then went deep into the Australian venture capital market and Afterwork’s story and comparative advantage. This episode is sponsored by Recess a great Aussie...

This week we sat down with the man of the hour, Tim Doyle. Tim is the founder of one of the hottest startups in Australia, Eucalyptus. We discussed Tims drivers, his competitive and contrarian nature and his lessons in business. We dived deep into his marketing and hiring principles and of course got onto some of his controversial tweets. There were so many takeaways from this episode and we left...

We chatted to Australian venture capitalist Nick Crocker, of Blackbird Nick has been a partner at Blackbird since 2016 and previously was CEO at Startmate and a serial entrepreneur. He’s one of the most well known VCs in the country and has played a significant role in the Aus startup ecosystem. We chatted deeply about his career as an entrepreneur and investor but we also got personal on this epi...

This week we had the pleasure of chatting to David Shein. David is the founder of Australia’s first unicorn Com Tech, Author of The Dumbest Guy at The Table and the co-founder of the VC fund OIF. We dived into Daves lucky breaks, identifying talent, living a fulfilling life and OIFs mission. This isn’t an episode you want to miss. Show Notes Book: Ride of a Lifetime- Bob Iger Podcast: Master of Sc...

Todays episode was with Vow co-founder George Peppou. Vow is a cellular based meat company that has taken Australia by storm in the past few years.    They’re trying to reinvent the food system by creating meat that is grown in labs.   Recently they raised one of Australia’s largest Series A investment rounds at $73.5 million.   In todays episode we talk about George’s sto...

This week we had the pleasure of chatting to the co-founder of ImmutableX, Robbie Ferguson. Alongside his brother Robbie has built Immutable into a unicorn at 25 years old. We dived into Robbie’s drivers, Immutable X, the case for web 3 and his leadership lessons. Show notes Immutable: https://www.immutable.com/ Book: The Culture Series- Ian Banks Podcast: The Tim Feriss Show Inspirational figure:...

Exploring the use of Psychedelic for mental health has interested us since the startup of our podcast. There are few things more important than mental health and this week we dived deep into how Psychedelic Assisted Therapy can be the next frontier in treating mental health. We explored Peter’s motivations, the history of Psychedelic  the current state of Australia’s mental health system and...

This week we interviewed Ross Chaldecott, the co-founder of Kinde.  They're one of the most hyped startups in the Australian ecosystem, having raised $10m from Blackbird and Felicis Ventures at the pre-product stage.  They’re building developer acceleration tools to help software startups get up and running easier. We chatted about his journey, design and starting Kinde. One to keep your...

This week we interviewed the NSW Minister for Digital Victor Dominello.  Sadly on the day of releasing this podcast, Victor announced he is leaving State Politics.  He was known as one of the truely tech savvy politicians in Australia and had a massive following on social media because of it.   Under his leadership the NSW Government released initiatives like The Service NSW app, QR...