Pain is a Moat: How Australia’s Top AI Founders Are Building Global Giants

What does it take to build world class AI companies out of Australia, and why does San Francisco still move 6 to 9 months faster? In this episode, Brendan Hill sits down with 3 of Australia’s most ambitious AI founders: Pasha Rayan (A1Base), Anshul Jain (Everlab) and Jacky Koh (Relevance AI).

They break down the rise of agentic AI, how engineering culture in SF accelerates innovation, and why the next generation of founders need to think in $100b outcomes. They dive into why the best founders and engineers are "addicts" who get lost in time building things they love, building autonomous healthcare, and why AI companies should stay pre-revenue longer to ensure they are building real "magic" before scaling.

They also unpack what Australia must do to stay competitive, how to build teams that love hard problems, and why ambition, pace and hands-on founders matter more than ever. It’s a rare inside look at the operators defining the next era of AI infrastructure, agent orchestration and primary healthcare.

🎧 Episode 3

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In The Blink of AI🦾

This month, Dr Tom Kelly from Heidi Health and Anish Sinha from UpCover pressure tested Australia’s new AI strategy from the frontlines of healthcare and insurance, unpacking what it got right, where it stayed vague, and why compute, energy, and local infrastructure mattered more than glossy principles or slogans. Builders wanted proof, not promises, and timelines they could actually execute against inside real world operations that teams could feel every day.

Then Amy Saper from Uncork Capital shared how Silicon Valley backed AI winners, judging founder slope, not pedigree, and what durable moats looked like when models commoditised, while Josh Vinson explored neural decoding and brain computer interfaces, where cognition and software started to blur, reminding us that shipping beat storytelling every time for founders everywhere.

Inside Neural Decoding: How AI Turns Brain Signals Into Meaning

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How to Build Cool Stuff With AI (No Code Needed)

🎧 Colm’s Episode

Why Australia Is Falling Behind on AI and How to Fix It

🎧 Anish and Dr. Tom

Procure Pro’s AI Playbook for Construction Procurement

🎧 Tom’s Episode

Betting on Slope: Seed Investing, AI Moats, and Founder Psychology

🎧 Amy’s Episode

Connect with Georgie on LinkedIn or Instagram to share your thoughts and suggestions for future guests.

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Pick My Brain 🧠

This month on Pick My Brain, Alan Jones sat down with Paul Bevan from Magic Valley to unpack the next wave of cultivated meat and why second generation food tech might finally make lab grown protein commercially viable. From cheaper cell culture media to smarter equipment and a surprisingly strong Australian regulatory path, they explored how deep tech can scale without burning hundreds of millions, and what it takes to tell a clear story to investors across impact, science, and commercial returns.

How to Pitch Deep Tech to Investors With Competing Priorities

NiceGit: Making Git usable for everyone, not just engineers

Then Dan Borthwick pitched NiceGit, a simpler take on source control that let designers, PMs, and writers ship safely without waiting on engineering, breaking down why Git had quietly become a productivity bottleneck as more non programmers built software. Together, the conversations showed that whether you are selling biotech or developer tools, success comes down to sharp positioning, smart go to market moves, and removing friction so teams can actually ship.

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Ask a question, get advice from Alan, or give feedback - https://www.speakpipe.com/pickmybrain

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If you don’t want to suck at investing, listen in!

From secondaries shaping liquidity behind the scenes to global funds rewriting the rules of early stage investing, this month’s episodes unpack how capital really moves in venture.

Max Kausman breaks down the world of VC fund secondaries in plain English, revealing how pricing works, why vintages matter, and what Australia’s outperformance says about the next decade of liquidity.

And Pocket Sun shares how she built SoGal’s global deal flow from scratch, earned her place on oversubscribed cap tables, and now navigates cap table recaps and fund two with sharp conviction.

If you want a clearer view of how investors make their boldest decisions long before the headlines, First Cheque has it.