If you're here for commentary on the Pope, Trump, or the geopolitics of frontier AI - this isn't that episode. If you're here for the unfiltered view from the people actually building Claude - stay.

This one is for the builders, the tinkerers, and the curious. Two of the people behind Claude - not here for governments, the press, or the Vatican. Instead, here to zero in on what they're seeing, and how you can get more from AI, however you're using it.

Katelyn Lesse runs engineering for Anthropic's Claude Developer Platform. Angela Jiang runs product. They're the people closest to what builders are actually doing with the technology and are exactly the kind of spark people they'll tell you every team needs.

What they're seeing: teams that transform overnight because one person in them is genuinely obsessed. Founders who move with the model instead of against it. A shift from "content is king" to "context is king" that most people haven't caught up to yet. And a clean slate advantage - available to anyone willing to look at an old problem as if it's never been solved before.

Earlier this year, Eucalyptus sold for $1.6 billion - one of the biggest exits in Australian startup history. Charlie Gearside co-founded it.

A year on, he's spending his time on YouTube and on Build Australia, the nonpartisan movement he launched last month to make space for a more ambitious version of this country. He talks publicly about property investing, the universities, and a culture that calls earnest people try-hards. None of it is comfortable, and none of it is what most people do after an exit.

He's also the first to admit that none of this pays off quickly. The work is to shift what Australians think is acceptable to want. A project that’s measured in decades, not quarters.

Kate sits down with Charlie to talk about untangling your identity from a company you built. The brutal question he had to ask himself before leaving Eucalyptus. Why he won't go into politics. Why he thinks the most risky thing right now might be doing nothing. And the one topic he's still too nervous to make a video about.

After 77 episodes and eight years at Blackbird, Mason Yates is signing off as host of Wild Hearts. This is his final episode - just eight minutes, no fanfare and true to how he hosted: generous with the floor, light on his own voice.

Mason started Wild Hearts in 2020. Lockdown. Sourdough. Tiger King. Across the six seasons since, Mason has sat down with founders building mind control for cows, sending toaster-sized satellites into orbit, and chasing a million-qubit quantum computer. Holding the mic through the 2021 supernova, the 2022 correction, the survivor years, and the deep tech wave defining this moment.

There's one question he's asked nearly every founder along the way: what gives you the most energy? In this episode he walks back through the answers that have stayed with him - Melanie Perkins, Tim Doyle, Tom Kelly, Flavia Tata Nardini - and shares three lessons from 77 episodes on the craft of interviewing.

And then he hands the show over to Kate Glazebrook.

If you've been listening since 2020, this one's a love letter to the archive you helped build. If you're new, it's the perfect doorway in.

Thank you, Mason. From all of us.

When Apple's iOS privacy changes hit, most people saw a headache. Rory Garton-Smith and Harry Dixon saw something else: millions of brands suddenly unable to reach customers, and no good solution in sight. So they built one.

Checkmate connects consumers with personalised offers at the exact moment of intent, replacing spray-and-pray marketing with something precise enough that household brands are now paying attention. Eight-figure ARR. 260 million users. Revenue up 6,000% in six months.

But the more interesting thing is what they've learned along the way. Because when you sit inside the shopping journeys of hundreds of millions of people, patterns emerge. Shopping windows. Platform preferences. How intent signals behave. What converts and what doesn't - and exactly why. That data is now the foundation of an AI marketing platform that goes well beyond savings.

In this conversation with Mason Yates, Rory and Harry talk about how they found the gap, how they solved the chicken-and-egg problem between brands and consumers, and where the intelligence they've built is taking them next.

Min-Kyu Jung was a corporate lawyer who taught himself to code because he saw a problem that needed solving. Three years later, Ivo is winning enterprise deals against vendors with much bigger names, with clients like Uber, Netflix, Shopify, and Reddit choosing them in head-to-head bake-offs.

How does an unknown startup from New Zealand win those deals? Min-Kyu stopped coding for three months to talk to 400 people. He went all-in on in-house legal teams while competitors hedged. He built features over weekends to save deals, then spent years on details others ignored.

In this conversation with Mason Yates, Min-Kyu shares why being unknown became an advantage, what it takes to win trust with lawyers, and why going deep on one thing beats being everywhere at once.

How did two first time founders get so wise?

Paying customers in four countries within weeks of launch. Firms signing pilot agreements before a product existed. Advisers calling Marloo life-changing. Not useful, not efficient, life-changing.

The secret? Going slow to go fast.

Hardy and Shak met at Sharesies where they helped build one of New Zealand's most loved brands, before starting something of their own. But instead of jumping straight to building, they spent six months in the ideas maze finding the right problem - exploring roofing, trade finance, retiring businesses. They built a 20-point framework, then threw it away. "Frameworks don't find markets."

When they landed on financial advice, they embedded inside firms for days - watching, listening, earning trust - until they were certain this was an industry where they could build in for years to come. But even then, they didn't start coding. They kept refining until they could describe Marloo in three simple steps. Crystal clear. If they couldn't communicate it simply, they weren't ready to build it.

Most founders build first and figure out how to explain it later. Hardy and Shak did it backwards. And that's why, when they finally launched, the product sold itself.

Because they'd gone so deep on the problem, they could design for global from day one. Not because they got lucky, but because they'd built that way on purpose.

Hardy runs the company from London. Shak builds from New Zealand. They disagree often and think that's the point. Tension resolved, then they move. No relitigating. Just trust.

Marloo is just getting started. Remember the name.

This is our last episode of 2025. We'll be back in the new year. Happy holidays.

This is the most technical episode we've ever done. Listen anyway.

Yes, there are acronyms. Yes, you'll learn what a chiplet is. Worth it.

But here's what you'll actually get: one of the best founder conversations we've recorded. Not because of the tech—but because of the humanity inside the tech.

Last year, Syenta had six weeks of cash left. No term sheets. The technology her team was building? The world's biggest semiconductor manufacturers said it was impossible. Two weeks later, she had four offers on the table. Now she's backed by the US government, Singapore, and Arizona.

What changed? Not the tech. The story.

"When you're trying to do something inauthentic—that is not your DNA as a founder—you're not gonna raise money," Jeka says. "Lately I haven't been selling at all. I've been just talking to people about what we do."

This episode is about falling in love with a problem so completely you move across the world to solve it. It's about building a team that burns the boats. It's about sharing your vulnerable vision before you feel ready. It's about being proud to be a tall poppy when Australian culture tells you to shrink.

The semiconductor stuff? It's actually fascinating once Jeka explains it. (AI chips sit idle 40% of the time because the wiring can't keep up. Her tech fixes that. Potential impact: 1% of global emissions saved.)

But even if you skip every technical detail, you'll walk away with lessons about fundraising in brutal markets, building culture through failure-sharing rituals, and going straight to the top instead of pushing from the bottom.

We've included a glossary in the episode description if you want it. You probably won't need it.

Most founders wait for perfect conditions. Not Adam Gilmour. He started Gilmour Space before Australia even had a space agency.

On July 30, that bet paid off. Australia's first launch permit. Fourteen seconds of flight. Right in the middle of the pack globally - SpaceX took four attempts to reach orbit.

Those 14 seconds proved everything that mattered: cleared ranges, ground systems working, hold-down claws releasing 45 tons of thrust flawlessly. Stage zero validated. And a month earlier? A 100kg satellite reached orbit, found in under 8 hours instead of the expected 2 weeks, still working 130+ days later.

"For a satellite company, that would've been massive," Adam says. "But we're a rocket company, so no one gives a shit."

Adam knew the regulations would change. He knew government support would come. "We took the risk first. Then government comes. I knew they would come." He started building anyway: 240 people in Queensland doing rockets, satellites, and hypersonics that foreign investors "cannot believe."

This episode takes you inside launch day: the orchestra of mission control, time vanishing in the final countdown, the moment Eris leapt off the pad. Adam talks about why he's building satellite buses to fix broken market economics, the path to dual-listing on the ASX and US exchanges, and going around the moon in 10 years.

If you're building deep tech from Australia and wondering whether to wait for perfect conditions, Adam's already answered that question.

"Stay tuned. Smoke and fire."