Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar built Atlassian into one of Australia's most successful tech companies, and one of the rare local startups to become a global software giant. Then the partnership behind it came apart.

Journalists John Stensholt and Perry Williams join Georgie to unpack their new book on the two co-founders: how they scaled a hundred-billion-dollar company side by side, and what happens to a business when the people at the top stop seeing eye to eye.

They cover how co-CEO leadership worked inside Atlassian, how the founders' split affected the company's culture, and what it took to keep the business moving through it.

Then the big question: where does Atlassian stand now? They get into the share price, the pressure on software companies to prove themselves in the AI era, and whether Atlassian can make the leap. Plus, John and Perry step into Mike and Scott's shoes to argue who was the better entrepreneur.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Cold open

00:47 This week's AI headline: an OpenAI agent inside Medicare

02:55 Meet John Stensholt and Perry Williams, authors of Tech Bros

05:05 The farewell dinner Mike Cannon-Brookes skipped

09:51 Why Mike and Scott wouldn't talk to the authors

11:28 Point Piper: the $71M house next to the $100M house

16:17 Private school vs public school: did class play a part?

19:33 How two journalists split and wrote one book

22:02 Atlassian's share price rollercoaster

23:57 Can Atlassian navigate AI and become a 2.0?

27:42 Australia's next billionaires: data centres

30:01 Debate: Scott vs Mike, who's the better entrepreneur?

32:50 Charismatic Mike, "robotic" Scott, and the famous punch

34:11 Signed book + predictions giveaway

34:34 "The most toxic place I've worked": Atlassian's culture

37:18 The Silicon Valley mediator who couldn't fix it

40:38 Will they reunite? SunCable, Anthropic and Skip Capital

42:29 Have Mike and Scott read the book?

44:35 Who should read Tech Bros

47:14 Outro

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x BAI_Script 01 - Sep 2026

Deel x BAI_Script 02 - Sep 2026

Blake Nussey leads at Amazon on Alexa, and he joins Georgie for a deep dive into Alexa Plus, now live in Australia. They cover the shift from rigid voice commands to a true personal assistant powered by over 70 models, and why Amazon built a model agnostic architecture to trade off speed against reasoning depth.

The conversation gets personal fast: a customer who broke her leg and called for help through Alexa, Blake's Alexa run wind down routine, and why "don't lead the witness" has become his and Georgie's go to line for settling arguments with a neutral AI referee. They dig into what it actually took to make Alexa understand Australian English (avo, servo and all), the far field listening tech that lets Alexa hear you across a noisy room, and how privacy and trust are engineered in, down to a hardware mute button.

They also talk accessibility (Alexa's role for vision impaired and elderly users), kids and voice AI, and Blake's prediction for when voice hits 50% of how we interact with tech. Plus a rapid fire round covering Tesla FSD, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, flat whites, and Jimmethy the raccoon.

***

Georgies Alexa+ Prompts to Try

“Alexa, remember that Imogen can't have dairy”

Alexa+ will remember preferences and factor it into recommendations like dinner ideas

“Alexa, remember my frequent flyer number is [number].”

“Alexa, it’s too hot in here.”

Nelly disagrees, but use this with a connected air conditioner to adjust the room temperature

“Alexa, every morning at 7, check the weather, recommend what to wear and play the news.”

Create a Routine like the corporate athlete you are

“Alexa, what happened while I was out?”

Alexa+ reviews footage from connected doorbells and cameras like a deliveries

***

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Cold open: FSD and "don't lead the witness"

01:18 – Intro: Georgie's honest take on Alexa Plus

04:04 – Sponsor: Deel

04:22 – Welcome + Blake's favorite AI hack (voice routines + Tesla FSD)

06:27 – Most non-AI thing: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

08:30 – Evolution of Alexa to Alexa Plus

09:59 – Behind the scenes: how Alexa picks the right model

12:51 – Smart home routines and the "corporate athlete" habit

15:29 – Alexa recommends a book (the Kindle story)

16:25 – Sponsor: Deel

17:12 – Building Australian Alexa: colloquialisms and local speech

20:58 – What made the Aussie rollout hard

22:36 – 2 billion interactions and Australian usage patterns

24:32 – Kids and Alexa: safety, kids mode, and development

26:44 – Presence, phones, and family dinner table use

27:44 – Privacy, trust, and the hardware mute button

30:52 – Accessibility: vision impairment, aging, and emergency use

34:21 – Near field vs far field: how Alexa actually hears you

39:19 – Voice AI hype, predictions, and wearable mic concepts

46:17 – Privacy culture, recording etiquette, and Meta glasses

48:44 – Rapid fire round

55:16 – Outro

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x BAI_Script 01 - Sep 2026

Deel x BAI_Script 02 - Sep 2026

For the first time in 80 episodes, host Georgie Healy flips the format and answers your questions. Recorded to mark 50,000 Spotify plays, this Ask Me Anything covers the questions listeners have been sending in since the early days of the show: the imposter syndrome years when even friends and family weren't listening, the two lines she still repeats to herself every week, and how she prepares guests before they ever hit record.

There's a rapid-fire round covering her most-used AI tools (Claude is the one she can't make a decision without), the AI products everyone can't stop talking about right now (Higgsfield and Grok Bot both get a mention), and the guest she's still chasing. Georgie also goes behind the scenes on the interview mistake that still makes her wince years later, told in full for the first time, along with the moment a live Sydney audience quietly revealed just how many of them had Claude running while they sat there.

It closes on where the show goes next: Georgie's honest, ambitious answer to what success looks like, and why she wants In The Blink of AI to be your weekly AI Superbowl.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x BAI_Script 01 - Sep 2026

Deel x BAI_Script 02 - Sep 2026

Lazar Jovanovic didn't go to engineering school. He found a beta tool called GPT Engineer, set himself a challenge to build a new app every week, and filmed the whole thing. Two years later he's Lovable's in-house vibe coder, building load bearing internal tools that engineers tell him used to take a team of twenty.

In this episode of In the Blink of AI, Georgie Healy hands him her own website and asks him to roast it live. He does, in about four minutes, and the fixes he gives are ones you can apply to your own site today.

From there it gets sharper. Why "explain it like I'm five" is the worst thing you can say to an AI, and the exact script to use instead. Why opening four tabs costs you less than fixing one bad build. Why he thinks almost nobody writes their own code by hand anymore, and why that was never the valuable part of engineering anyway.

And when Georgie asks why people blame the tools, he gives the line the whole episode hangs on: it's a vehicle, it's faster than you, and if you won't take the wheel, enjoy the cliff.

Plus what's actually left for humans when building gets cheap, the three tools he can't work without, and who he thinks Georgie should book next.

Hands on episode. Get a pen.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x BAI_Script 01 - Sep 2026

Deel x BAI_Script 02 - Sep 2026

For a decade, Elon Musk was the face of the modern entrepreneur: a self-made billionaire who bet his fortune on impossible ideas and somehow made them work.

SpaceX made reusable rockets a reality. Tesla helped turn electric cars into a global phenomenon. He became one of the most admired and influential figures in technology.

So what happened?

In this episode of In the Blink of AI, Georgie Healy traces Musk’s journey from bullied South African kid and PayPal millionaire to the man behind Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, X, xAI and more. Along the way, we explore the moments that transformed his public image: the Tesla “funding secured” controversy, his increasingly combative behavior online, his influence over Starlink during the war in Ukraine, his takeover of Twitter, his political rise alongside Donald Trump, and the controversies surrounding Grok.

But this isn’t simply a takedown.

Using the 4Gs framework, Georgie asks the harder question: Was Elon Musk actually a genius, or was he simply in the right place at the right time?

The answer is more complicated than either side might want to admit.

Because Musk may genuinely have helped solve some of the hardest engineering problems of our time. But does extraordinary capability excuse harmful behaviour?

You be the judge.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Elon Musk: From the World’s Most Admired Entrepreneur to the Most Controversial

02:08 Growing Up in South Africa: Bullying, Obsession, and Early Signs of Genius

02:57 Leaving South Africa and Building His First Tech Ventures

04:26 Zip2: Musk’s First Major Exit and the $307 Million Sale

04:38 X.com, PayPal, and the Power Struggle That Ousted Musk

05:26 The PayPal Mafia and the Fortune That Funded Musk’s Next Bets

07:40 SpaceX and Tesla: Betting His Fortune on Impossible Ideas

08:09 Falcon 1’s Historic Launch and SpaceX’s Near-Death Experience

08:50 Tesla’s Rise and the Revolution of Electric Cars

10:28 Peak Elon: SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and the Golden Years

11:06 How Much Did Elon Musk Actually Build? The Founder Debate

12:27 The Iron Man Myth and the People Behind Musk’s Companies

13:26 2018: The Year Elon Musk’s Public Image Changed

13:50 The “Funding Secured” Tweet and Tesla’s SEC Battle

15:10 The Thailand Cave Rescue and the “Pedo Guy” Controversy

15:45 Joe Rogan, Marijuana, and Musk’s Growing Pattern of Controversy

18:18 Starlink in Ukraine: When a Private Company Controls Wartime Infrastructure

19:17 Musk, Crimea, and the Limits of Private Power

20:47 Why Starlink May Be Musk’s Biggest Governance Problem

21:07 Buying Twitter for $44 Billion and Taking Over the Platform

22:00 Mass Layoffs, Free Speech Absolutism, and the Birth of X

23:43 Hate Speech, the Great Replacement Theory, and the Advertiser Exodus

25:13 The Case Against Musk’s Version of Free Speech

27:11 Musk Enters Politics and Becomes Trump’s Biggest Donor

28:02 DOGE, the Controversial Gesture, and Musk’s Growing Political Influence

28:44 Tesla Protests, DOGE’s Promised Savings, and the Fallout

30:58 Musk vs. Trump: From Political Alliance to Public Feud

31:16 xAI and Grok: Musk’s Vision for an “Anti-Woke” AI

32:08 Grok’s Hitler Controversy and the Rise of “Spicy Mode”

33:46 AI Safety, Non-Consensual Images, and the Cost of Unrestricted AI

35:00 The Expanding Musk Empire: SpaceX, Starlink, X, xAI, Tesla, and More

36:28 The 4 Gs: Is Elon Musk a Grown-Up, Genius, or Something Else?

36:49 Why Musk Fails the “Grown-Up” and “Gravitas” Tests

39:00 Genius vs. Accountability: What Musk Actually Changed

40:00 The Final Verdict: Genius Without a Hall Pass

Paloma Newton is the founder of Elita, a longevity platform for dogs that combines biological testing, clinical history, and the changes owners notice day to day into one picture of how a dog is ageing. She built it backwards by most startup standards, a stem cell bank before a product, years of science before a single marketing push, all under one rule: don't promise more than the platform can back up.

On this episode, Paloma brings that same rigor to two of the week's biggest AI headlines. She explains why South Australia's $3 million Royal Commission into AI is aimed at the wrong problem, and makes the sharper case that most of our anxiety about AI isn't really about the technology at all, it's about trust in who controls it. She also gets into the Jevons Paradox and why AI was never going to hand us more free time, her own weekly system for separating real output from busywork, and why she thinks women stepping back from AI over ethical concerns is a bigger loss than it looks.

Plus, the origin story behind Elita, starting with her dog Edgar's breed health scan, and a closing surprise guest who may or may not understand what a podcast is.

Whether you're building, funding, or just trying to make sense of the AI news cycle, this one's worth the full listen.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Cold open

01:10 Welcome & episode preview

02:14 Sponsor: Deel

02:40 AI hack of the week: the self-updating Slack to-do list

04:01 What is Elita

04:51 Headline: South Australia's $3M AI Royal Commission

11:31 Headline: Does AI actually give us more free time

14:58 Sponsor: Deel

18:29 The Elita origin story: Edgar, stem cells, and building backwards

25:35 Pet longevity vs. human longevity

32:18 Holding AI's promise and its doom and gloom at once

40:52 The AI-designed cancer vaccine that started with one dog

45:06 Why women opting out of AI should worry everyone

50:01 Rapid fire

53:23 What Australia does best in AI and deep tech

55:46 A very special guest

Benjamin Plummer has one of the stranger CVs in Australian tech: nine years inside Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, building an AI lab alongside IBM Watson's inventor, scaling a startup he says went from $10M to $160M in revenue in eighteen months as CEO, and now running Dragonfly Intelligence, a firm that buys ordinary services businesses and rebuilds them as AI-native companies from the ground up.

This conversation starts with the week ChatGPT tried to cheat its way out of its own safety harness, and what that says about accountability as models get more capable. From there, Ben and Georgie get into why coding has gotten fast while everything around it, deciding what to build, checking it got built right, has become the real bottleneck, why software has spent a decade getting bloated and what an Apple-style, purpose-built alternative could look like, and why locking your business to one model provider is a losing bet.

Ben also makes the case for Australia's shot at this moment: not frontier models, but data centers, the application layer, and physical AI, backed by what he estimates is a two trillion dollar services economy that's largely untouched.

It closes with Ben's read on who wins and loses as AI reshapes work, and a blunt warning for the services companies still sitting on the sidelines.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open

0:51 Welcome to the show

2:16 Sponsor: Deel (pre-roll)

2:36 Hack of the week: the "rambling session"

5:13 Georgie's hack: the NFC nail chip

6:12 When ChatGPT tried to break its own harness

13:14 AI makes coding fast, everything else the bottleneck

15:39 Sponsor: Deel (mid-roll)

18:19 Nine years inside Bridgewater

21:37 Building Elemental Cognition with Watson's inventor

24:26 Scaling Invisible from $10M to $160M

26:06 Why Dragonfly Intelligence

27:59 Spotting "zombie companies" in the AI gold rush

32:10 Why software moats are dying

35:01 Open source, closed source, and not marrying a model

44:26 "Easier to do hard things": Dragonfly's ambition

47:12 The real debate on AI data centers in Australia

52:15 Three bets for Australia beyond frontier models

55:05 Rapid fire: what keeps Ben up, who wins and loses from AI

1:01:30 Outro

Dan Westgarth has spent 7 years helping build Deel from a contractor invoicing tool into one of the most valuable HR and payroll platforms in the world, and he did it after cutting his teeth as an early operator at Revolut. As COO, he sits across nearly every function the AI conversation touches: finance, sales, engineering, and the sheer operational load of running a company at global scale.

In this conversation, Dan gets specific on AI and Ops. He walks through the internal tool that takes a bug ticket, writes the fix, and opens its own pull request for an engineer to review. He talks through what he actually looks for when hiring, and the future of SaaS isn't dead, but there is about to be a lot more competition.

We traverse through a funny detour into Dan's own weekend coding habit (his laptop did not enjoy….), a rundown of which AI tool he reaches for and when, and an answer to "what would you build this weekend”

Listen for a leading operator's view of AI adoption at scale

CHAPTERS

00:00 Cold open, the AI agent that writes its own code

00:46 Show intro, Deel's sponsorship, and what's ahead

02:03 Sponsor break, Deel

02:30 What Deel actually does

03:14 Rapid AI hot takes, finance roles, human oversight, hardware, sports, and the World Cup

09:29 Why Deel keeps winning after seven years

10:00 How the product evolved from contractor invoicing to a full HR platform

11:28 What Dan looks for when hiring

13:06 Leaving Revolut for Deel

14:17 Sponsor break, Deel

14:57 The YC Winter 2019 connection

15:49 Setting targets and building momentum

16:43 Where AI helps the sales team, and where it can't

19:20 Should AI handle your email

21:03 AI meeting assistants, pros and cons

22:53 What makes an A+ engineer in 2026

23:37 Inside DCA, Deel's self-writing code agent

25:55 Breaking into new international markets

28:34 B2C versus B2B expansion

30:16 The cost of not using a platform like Deel

33:01 What keeps Dan up at night about AI agents

33:29 Akai, and scaling operations without growing headcount

36:15 Dan's own weekend coding experiment

37:26 Rapid fire, is the SaaS apocalypse real

39:48 The physical Deel Card and crypto payroll

42:23 What is a stablecoin

43:02 Which AI tools Dan actually reaches for

44:51 If Dan built one AI project this weekend

46:45 Closing thoughts and where to find Dan

47:08 Deel's new Arsenal FC sponsorship

48:41 Georgie's weekly AI newsletter