What did it take to build an $11 billion company, Airwallex?

Jack moved from rural northeast China to Melbourne at 15 and now runs Airwallex, the global payments and business banking platform.

Cameron McLain and Tommy Stadlen talk to Jack about what it took to get there: the jobs he worked to put himself through college, why he thought he'd be happy with a $100 million business, and why he turned down Stripe's $1.2 billion offer. He also explains why he believes the future of banking is agentic, and why the big banks are too far behind to build it.

He speaks about:

• What he learned about work ethic: washing dishes, bar shifts and overnights at a petrol station
• The difference between anxiety and survival
• Running ten side businesses, and still feeling irrelevant
• The angel who wired $1 million into his personal account before signing anything
• Pulled term sheets, and a $100 million cheque from Yuri Milner
• Being targeted as a Silicon Valley outsider (and why he thinks the facts are on his side)
• Agentic banking and the end of vertical finance software
• And lots more...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're back with Max Jaderberg, president of Isomorphic Labs, to talk about his life lessons.

After years at DeepMind working on deep learning, generative models and reinforcement learning, Max helped launch Isomorphic in 2021 to turn the promise of AlphaFold into new medicine. Cameron McLain and Tommy Stadlen talk to Max about why he rejected a consultancy contract to do a PhD at Oxford, and why he later left core AI research after writing a pro/con list on a whiteboard in his loft. He also explains how Isomorphic keeps a startup's hunger (even with Alphabet's backing), and what nearly 15 years of working with Demis Hassabis has taught him.

He speaks about:

• Deciding what "superpower" his research could create
• Whether DeepMind could ever have done it alone, without selling, and how Alphabet backs its investments
• Keeping a startup culture, with a giant's backing
• Why Isomorphic wanted a global investor base in its latest round
• Trusting Demis Hassabis's vision (including an early Nobel Prize prediction he didn't believe)
• Rejecting a job contract to do a PhD
• Working 24/7 in his head, but making time for Counter-Strike - and needing plenty of sleep...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Max Jaderberg, President of Isomorphic Labs.

Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet-backed company spun out of DeepMind, is using AI to design new medicines, with the mission of solving all disease.

Tommy Stadlen and Cameron McLain talk to Max about why he believes no future exists where medicines aren't designed with AI, and why he'd be "severely disappointed" if disease doesn't mean something completely different 30 years from now.

He speaks about:

• What "solve all disease" means in practice
• How a medicine actually gets made today, and why it's "very, very fancy trial and error"
• Why earlier AI drug discovery overpromised, and what AlphaFold changed
• Why you can't download the data this field needs off the internet
• The 90% clinical failure rate
• Bio-resilience, bad actors, and why Isomorphic keeps its models in-house

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.