 Namai Harimai. Greetings and welcome to this session, this EHF Live Investor session. So Edmund Hillary Fellowship. It's a collective of entrepreneurs, scientists, storytellers, creatives and investor change makers who want to make an impact globally from Ateada, New Zealand. So this session, you will hopefully have a good conversation with Andy and Aaron and hopefully learn a little bit more about Andy on a personal level so that you can touch base with him after any other time and it's sort of you get to know what his intentions are for New Zealand as well. So this session though is going to be interviewed, Andy is going to interview Aaron. Aaron is going to interview Andy and Aaron is from Pienza who is a SAS guru and he's been helping out Callahan Innovation actually at the moment as well on what SAS looks like for New Zealand and going forward. So I'm going to hand over to you Aaron and you can take it away. There will be Q&A later on in the session. Okay, great. Thanks Michelle. So I think if you have any questions along the way feel free to just put them in the chat and then I think at the end we'll go back and kind of go through them but feel free to to mention them as we're going. So I'm excited to to intro Andy who I've known for I guess close to 10 years now and I met as part of the Seattle Techstars community and we'll get to that a little bit but Andy was a mentor and an investor and someone that kind of was very helpful throughout my journey and I think we'll touch on a lot of stuff. Andy's had a great career and I think a lot of things to learn from but I think one thing that I thought was interesting is that the Seattle ecosystem has you know has gone through a metamorphosis and it's from a tech ecosystem I should say and Andy was a really critical kind of pillar to that whole process and I you know getting more involved with New Zealand it reminds me a lot of kind of Seattle you know maybe I don't know five or seven years ago as it was making its kind of progress through you know starting lots of technology companies and anyway Andy was not only you know saw that journey but also participated as a key piece so I think it'll be fun to talk about that too. So anyway without further ado maybe Andy I'd love you know in your words do you want to start with kind of to talk a little bit about you started as an entrepreneur and then an investor and and then we can kind of get to kind of what you're doing now and your interest in New Zealand and stuff like that towards the end but maybe a little bit of history on your your background. A little history on my background so I'm the I'm the second of four boys and I have I had real authority issues with my father so we'll start there. Which made which made me made me a perfect candidate to be an entrepreneur I knew when I was in college that I was going to be an entrepreneur that I would be a shitty employee and I mean I joke about the authority issues I had them in spades and and so I went to I was a computer science undergrad went to business school at MIT came out of MIT in 1994 and started my first internet company I went three for four as a operator a venture funded startups startups that was all on the east coast I moved to Seattle in 2000 and when I moved the venture landscape in the United States was really there were two sort of cities in which you could get venture capital one was Palo Alto and San Francisco area and the other was Boston Boston was second there were a number of venture firms in Boston and when I moved to Seattle you know there was two or three venture firms but only one really active venture firm and the entrepreneurial ecosystem was was a significant step back from what it was in Boston in Boston there was both capital mentorship and a number of young a lot of young talent coming out of the various universities there were seven universities in Boston and for those of you don't know and and I thought that the ecosystem was suboptimal and lame and so uh yeah so I'll stop there ultimately in 2007 in 2007 eight I started a seed stage venture fund and brought tech stars to Seattle but um but I'll you know that's my background that's great um so kind of double clicking a little bit on Seattle what so you've you've I didn't realize you came in 2000 so you've been here a little over 20 years uh and what if you if you think about the kind of how the ecosystem has grown and what have been some of the key pillars like what tell us that story about like Seattle and what it was like in 2000 and then and honestly probably a lot of people want to call us so don't probably know even you know where it is today and so maybe a little bit of that story yeah so I mean let's start with today so I think today Seattle has an entrepreneurial ecosystem is quite vibrant there are a number of there's a lot more capital to be had I would say it's still probably somewhat under capitalized but it's a vibrant eco entrepreneurial ecosystem there's definitely I mean Amazon and Microsoft have played a major role in attracting talent people are leaving those companies and starting new companies um and you know I think uh tech stars started in 2010 I think it did play a major role in in helping the ecosystem come together and get get more activity and support and mentorship um uh yeah I would say probably Seattle's probably third now in the um venture capital landscape in the United States it's you know Silicon Valley New York and then Seattle would be my and Boston is sort of probably fourth um followed by Austin and what were some of the like um if you how did Seattle kind of grow like you mentioned you mentioned a couple pillars of things like um you know education like having kind of computer science programs or schools having capital having mentorship like what are those what were the key kind of drivers as Seattle developed and you know and then maybe also kind of thinking about other ecosystems and how that is not a common playbook or are they all kind of do it differently or how do you see it playing out yeah I mean I would say for sure I mean talent is where it starts talent and number of starts and so you young talent who uh you know uh idealistic unawares of the risk of starting a company um and just really how hard it is um yeah naivete I mean at least in the U.S. the venture industry has done a really nice job of creating the dream that people fall into and then realize they're in a nightmare you know I think Seattle really benefited I mean we benefit a lot from being the lower cost two hour flight away from Silicon Valley so geographic location of Seattle's really I mean it's interesting that Seattle took off more than LA but I think there's definitely an element of uh geography that played a role and then you know you can't under you can't understate the role of Amazon and the growth of Amazon um which you know 20 years ago uh was I mean I remember the building that it was in that Amazon used to be in one building um and now it it owns you know a good portion of the city and literally downtown um so I think the big it's Amazon and Microsoft those two companies in particular is attractors for tech talent and managerial talent etc uh with the geography and then UW has really come along as a uh as a top tier uh engineering school so those things I think played important ingredients in helping the ecosystem I think tech stars just to switch to tech stars for a moment um uh the first class of tech stars in Seattle was 2010 it was the third city so tech stars started in Boulder went to Boston and in year two went to came here to Seattle I knew the uh early investor I'm good friends with Brad Felz he had been an investor in my company uh Ryan McIntyre who is Brad's current partner uh and a um a fellow at EHF um uh I went to the I went to speak at the Boston tech stars event for my 40th college I'm sorry for my 25th college reunion um and um and I remember weaving that and and I was I was really moved by that experience and I left the room of you know 10 startups and uh and was kind of in tears remembering my origins as a first time entrepreneur and the role that Brad and some other mentors played in helping me successfully launch and exit my first company and I called Brad and said hey if you want to do this in Seattle I'm happy to do it and that led to me returning to Seattle uh getting a call from David Cohen saying let's do this um I then went about and sort of in a painstaking fashion uh tech stars Seattle 2010 was the first investment that all the existing venture capital players wrote checks into now they weren't big checks you know 25k 50k um like they weren't it wasn't a it wasn't a lot of support but the fact that I went through that process and there was a vehicle that was not about Andy Sack um or my venture fund it was a different thing it was tech stars and this was about growing the ecosystem that's how I that's how I pitched tech stars Seattle and that's what brought those that capital together in its first deal and I think that played that was important because the early some of the early deals I got referred were from those venture firms they would have companies where the companies weren't far enough along and they'd be like oh let's put this in tech stars um and so they'd refer it over whether or not we accepted them and not was another matter but I got a number of referrals of deals that way and the and also got referrals of mentors and so that really set the stage for um I think tech stars to be a meaningful player in the evolution and maturation of the ecosystem that's great and um so tell us a little bit maybe transitioning to you as an investor um how did how did you think about um you know tech stars companies and and what what the ideal tech stars company was and then maybe also with your angel hat you know what is a well how do you think about uh the ideal angel investment and then I know you think you've started a couple venture funds at this point so like maybe that also as a what's the ideal venture backed company look like and you know are those three different or how do you what what's the the ideal kind of scenario for each of those yeah so let's I mean we continue with tech stars tech star like a lot of it depends on stage of company tech stars is effectively preceded um so it's mostly two or three people men or women and they have an idea about what they want to go do at the precede stage is really like I sort of disregard particularly during tech stars I learned to disregard whatever their original inception was of their business and really just focus on the team um uh Aaron you were a good case and point Aaron for those of you know the way we met was Aaron sort of I had so I had a coffee event it's amazing how important a coffee shop can be in the evolution of uh an ecosystem but I had a I went to I had a local coffee shop that I went to was convenient for me and so I started hosting open coffee there I think Aaron came Aaron had a business that was sort of interesting but I tended to ignore and um but sorry you're being way too kind it was a horrible idea I didn't want to call it out and say it really sucked on you know I was being politically kind it was a terrible freaking idea now that Aaron's and now that Aaron's mentioned it but we had coffee and and we hit it off and and and he evolved and he ultimately applied to tech stars and went in and you know grew a business and super successful um so it was talent talent first and what I look for I look for I look for people who had authority issues with their father is that the uh I think a lot of people talk about good entrepreneurs have a a chip on their shoulder that makes them irrational and make irrational decisions right maybe talk a little bit more about why why do you like people with a troubled past if you know it's authority issues like nobody wants it like nobody wants to be told what to do I don't I think even people don't have real authority issues don't like to be told what to do but entrepreneurs for sure don't and you fall into that category um I don't know what your relationship was with your dad we haven't had that conversation um uh you know that's I they don't put that on the tech stars application they probably should but they don't um you know the tech stars application is what your background we we look for builders right so um uh team how to have engineering talent preferably they would have built something um so that counted for a lot and then we um uh I think without that you don't get in and then separate from that you're just looking for what they've done in the most recent past and sort of that either that naivete or the desire to go um plant a flag somewhere and and build that's great and I think that that ended up working out pretty well right I think the maybe yeah insane insanely well yeah maybe tell us a little bit about like the 2011 class of tech stars uh I think the I saw a hard line recently yeah yeah two years before ours so yeah the class before Aaron's 2011 was the best class in tech stars history I think it was the best class in any accelerator history um including what combinator uh three uh three unicorns in the class um out of ten right out of ten remitly went public uh two weeks ago at a seven billion dollar valuation uh tech stars invested at effectively 1.5 million pre so it worked out and what I'm I'm always curious um um with investors it seems like investors are in kind of two camps like there's um like Mark Andreessen did this blog post about markets always win right um I'm sure you've seen that where talks about if you you know if you take a a great team in a bad market it's yeah yeah he's he's right I mean markets markets markets do win um you know rising tides lift all boats um I mean what's interesting about the the class that we were just referencing in tech stars the three unicorns only one of them started with the idea that they still are working on the other two had major pivots two or three years in um like well after tech stars so so that goes to it's not you know they they that the team had a pivot into the market that then helped lift them up and I do think it is a case of markets um at the time of tech star it really comes down to sort of stage I think you can bet on talent sort of despite market and and idea and product and you know the smart the smart talent will figure out where they need to be it may take them longer but that that happens but I I firmly am a uh rising tides lift all boats I mean I was lucky enough in in my first company to exit in July of 99 if I had not sold at that time there's no way that deal happens six months later and it was pure it was pure market got it so so markets always win but a great team in a bad market can always find a good market and that's oh not always I mean the market will crush the the market will crush the the great team if if they don't move sometimes the team is is you know crazy enough to pivot that makes sense um and what do you for maybe for entrepreneurs out there um you see Ellen what do you today talk a little bit about what do you look for I know you do you maybe you could explain you did some angel investing you've got also a fund maybe talk a little bit about that yeah so I've I've recently started a a fund of blockchain nature native blockchain native venture funds so it's a fund of funds so I've actually gone up the stack looking for investment managers and and venture capitalists who are operating in web three um I still do angel investing uh both in funds and in companies um you know my I look for high quality team solving a real problem when it's a software company in the web three space I'm all about sort of NFTs in gaming these days as as Aaron will will tell you um and I've sort of been deep in the NFT landscape and really enjoying that space and there it's it's actually more it's it's different it's it's not you know there's still like great team solve a problem but in the NFT space there's a lot more I don't know it's a lot more hit driven there's a lot more uh uh other dynamics uh marketing plays a really key role community plays a key role distribution plays a key role and those things really don't matter and standard SaaS startups that makes sense and so for so your um to kind of frame the ideal folks for you to talk to it would be obviously anyone that happens to be creating a crypto related crypto focused venture fund and and you know and anything in that space like I'm willing to talk to entrepreneurs that my fund is is you know we have a limit on what we can do directly into individual projects got it and so yeah so then entrepreneurs that are crypto focused and then generally kind of any software entrepreneurs and that's out of your angel pocket versus your your pocket but that's right that makes sense um and maybe what is it like uh so you've started two funds at this point right from from scratch and I think founders called for none um you guys did a couple more funds maybe what is it like starting adventure fund what are what are LPs like how is it different than being an angel investor um I mean what do I want to say I mean uh raising a venture fund is you're in um you're in perpetual you're perpetually raising capital so and you're not building anything so you know there's just a really long cycle from raising capital deploying it you know 10 years on one hand is a short period of time when when you get older and uh and um but when you're living it day to day it's quite a long time um and so there's a the feedback cycle of being a venture capitalist as opposed to being an entrepreneur is long um you're not interacting with customers your customers are investors occasionally you're calling you to check and see how their investment is doing hopefully you can say I haven't lost your money yet um you know but when you have lost their money you know they can be some of them can be or ornery and you know building a building a venture fund is uh um I actually really really like the industry um I think it plays an important role in in um in an entrepreneurial ecosystem capital is really important um I think EHF uh the investor fellows of which I am one um you know it's it's been good looking at deals in New Zealand uh if you're in New Zealand and have a deal I'm actively looking for other investments there so I think capital plays an important role actually growing a venture fund is really hard like you got to get talent you got to get deal flow and tech stars played a really important role in in the success of my first venture fund founders co-op um those companies that the class that we just referred to we invested in two of those unicorns and and our returns are off the charts I mean I think they're top-decile um in terms of I mean it was a small venture fund but our returns are really uh they amazed me so and I never would have I never imagined we'd make that much money I think uh so Lily you've got a you got a question do you want to hop in Kia ora um thank you for sharing your wealth of information there Andy just a quick question in terms of Aotearoa New Zealand um I'm presuming um you have aspirations for uh ecosystems here and maybe supporting what one of the areas I'm noticing is it is all about safe software development um we have limited um uh great huge amounts of technology companies but these we have huge amounts of businesses and in particular a lot of great moldy businesses but they're not necessarily in that tech space um and most of the venture capital um to help sort of scale for the businesses purely in that tech space or is there any appetite for sort of moldy businesses to support so let me just make sure I got the question correct you're basically asking do these does most VC focus predominantly on tech sector is that the question a little bit and and and how do you see yourself um in New Zealand and contributing in some positive way of building the ecosystem here in New Zealand so traditionally the answer to the question fortunately or unfortunately depending on your sector is yeah VC skews strongly towards really towards high tech not even like I mean they play a role in biotech and and health tech but at least in the United States tech VC skew strongly towards high tech um the rise of web web three sort of you know falls in that category um and that's largely because that's where you know returns are their returns in the public market etc and the ability to scale companies is much easier I think today climate change uh and climate change funds I think is the new area uh that VC is starting to chase throughout the the um the entire um life cycle of companies both from C to A to you know series C and D and so I think climate change is going to get a lot of venture capital going to get money from the government but I think venture capital and venture capital returns over the next decade I I kind of don't think there's a better space than the climate change space um you know things that fall outside that uh you know basically need to bootstrap or find alternative sources of um funding and financing I it's worth mentioning I also started uh a company um a finance company called lighter capital which um does royalty-based financing um uh what we called revenue loans um and that's an interesting alternative uh and and more bootstrap oriented entrepreneurs can um uh can use that capital but they're nowhere near the size of investment um and you need real revenue in order to get revenue-based financing so um my plan um you know I'm super excited about the ecosystem I think there are some similarities to what it was like back in 2020 I'm sorry back in 2000 when I arrived in Seattle uh I'm super excited at some point to get into the country um and uh participate in the ecosystem in New Zealand um um you know my I'm I'm fortunate I uh I won't be investing solely in tech um you know I a good founder can sway me um I like food related businesses um my stomach is an easy way to my my wallet um so I mean I don't like restaurants but I like food related businesses a whole host so you know the right entrepreneur can uh I've invested in coffee companies and beer companies and I guess that's not food that's drink but you get the idea I'm living proof that you'll you'll bet on a bad idea with an entrepreneur you think has some potential yes uh Rosalie Sante you uh you had a question too yeah Kia ora Andy and thank you so much for this Corero it's it's really valuable um I'm I'm just interested in exploring where you see uh both the challenges and the opportunities within the New Zealand ecosystem right now so for us we have as you've noted an emergent uh innovation system um and while there are some areas of growth we still have considerable uh challenges both in growing and scaling our businesses as well as increasing um the volume so I'd be really interested from your perspective and what you've been through in Seattle where do you see the opportunities in the areas of momentum and where do you see the critical gaps um I mean that you know there's no question that uh New Zealand has some raw materials that uh that should make it should should make it a vibrant ecosystem one is you know obviously the current situation of borders let's set that stuff aside you know I think New Zealand that there's an element of um critical mass and then there's an element of sort of uh follow on and next stage so I think in the cake meaning those are challenges that New Zealand ecosystem faces so the distributed nature of uh geographically um both of the um the country um but then also just the you know the cities you don't you don't have the equivalent of a Palo Alto or New York that really drives it and that lends itself to okay companies can start and they can start to make progress and they can get enough money to get going but actually getting to scale if they do get to scale you know people taking notice of follow on financing to actually get the results um I see as as factors that you know need to be overcome um I think you gotta play to your strengths so I think agriculture and climate change are two areas where um where I would look to build critical mass and that means pulling together a community of both entrepreneurs and investors and putting weight behind the winners um and sort of everybody chipping in and hoping that somebody breaks out to make a huge win um yeah it's not easy and it takes a lot of time and I gotta tell you what during the process like I didn't know in the midst of it all I didn't know that I was actually being successful at all um either either um from an ecosystem perspective or um or a financial perspective and it turns out in both cases looking back today looking back five years ago 10 years ago turns out it was a lot of that has to do with market and lock you know and and so it was a labor of love like I wasn't I wasn't making money I was working for a lot less than I could have been making elsewhere in the market but I did it largely because my heart uh you know I'm a community minded guy and and I had people help me in my first company I wouldn't have been successful at they not helped me period and so uh I really liked the opportunity to give back and um and because of my authority issues I don't tell people what to do I just ask questions sorry just to follow up you noted the importance of amazon and microsoft and the growth and their ability to both attract talent and also to create um opportunity I guess for spin-offs we don't really have that in our tearoah at any kind of real scale yeah and I just wondered where you know where is the opportunity for us around that talent piece I mean it's interesting I I talk about those two companies in their role and I think it's probably I think it's true I mean they clearly Amazon clearly moved a lot of people from other parts of the country to Seattle and those people uh I suspect you know like did some of them did spin out at the same time I don't want to overstate their role because most of the people that went and worked at amazon and microsoft really were not entrepreneurs I mean aren't excluded um uh you know most of them were happy to take a paycheck and be an employee and and contribute to those those enterprises so I don't think it's uh I think it's super helpful but it's not critical I think strong university is young people young talent is critical uh and an organizing function around the community is also critical and risk capital is critical um we happen to have microsoft in amazon and I think they were helpful in establishing the city um that was just an attractor to come I think there are other attractors that New Zealand has that you know clearly are at play here with EHF and so you know it's it's useful and I think the talent of EHF should you know bodes well bodes well to the community like what attracted me to EHF I was like oh I get this um you know like it was an immediate uh it resonated me with with me instinctively uh and deeply what EHF's mission was and how it was going about it so the raw materials from the support and community side we you know we're just impeded by this wonderful pandemic but all of the points you say like it's going to be a labor of love and there are real challenges to act like you know the market needs to swing in New Zealand's favor to allow it those businesses to actually get to scale and attract the capital um like the market has to move in that way and if it doesn't you know it's a long slog yeah Andy you mentioned climate change a couple times um I'm curious to and I know you've spent a lot of time here uh I'm curious here a little bit more about where you think that's going because I think one one thing that surprised me um you know kind of coming back to Lily's point too I think I've been really surprised that the venture world seems to be kind of going outside its comfort zone with with climate investments where you know they look at it and they're like this isn't quite a tech company or the time horizon might be more than 10 years or you know this this may not this doesn't have the kind of scale mechanics that like traditional software does but still are kind of leaning in because they're just it's you know they they believe that the market is gonna is going that direction so much um so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on like is it is it going to be different do we see different types of investments happening there and like uh like for example I wrote a small check to Energy Bank in New Zealand you know and it's like I mean it's it's offshore energy storage I mean it couldn't be far further from like what I know and understand right and like the go-to market is selling to like you know huge energy companies or governments and stuff not anyway so you know and I never if it was like a restaurant or if it was a I don't know any other industry like that's I can't do it I don't understand it you know but I was like compelled enough that like it feels like this is the future so much that we can step out our comfort zone I'm curious if you think that we're gonna see just if you subscribe to Mark Andreessen's comment about markets that markets make companies you know we're either gonna we're either gonna implode as a species or climate change is going to be solved and in order for climate change to be solved there's gonna the regulatory environment is going to change radically in the next five to ten years government is going to be a driving force uh consumers and businesses all it's gonna be all hands on deck and so the next generation of massive company growth with you know with large tailwinds is clearly climate change so you know I you and I both well I mean I applied to EHF with a climate fund I was about to raise that fund just as the pandemic hit I ended up backing off and going back to sort of my comfort zone and getting more involved in web 3 and crypto but there's no question that at the highest level that there that there are going to be enormous companies built in the next decade in in response to the situation we all find ourselves in so that market's going to go and as and you know the capital is going to some capital is going to make uh venture like returns so you're that's what you're seeing and I think without that that situation I don't think uh you know um climate perkins try to climate fund I want to say 15 years ago um it failed it was ahead of the market the market wasn't there to get behind it now the market is I mean so let's hope and do you think the one thing that I've always amazed by New Zealand is just the the government helps like it actually does help it's like net positive in the US are just always hoping it's going to get out of your way and not ever expect anything positive out of it so do you think that that it seems like the the New Zealand culture is very focused on like climate and you know with a government that can be nimble and get behind things do you like climate's a good opportunity uh like for New Zealand to shine and yeah 100 I do um I mean I and I think it's natural resources I mean that would be for sure the area that I would be a area that I would focus on because um you know whether it be government or the ecosystem it just seems to lend itself and be well positioned cool and then maybe lastly to kind of tie it all together tell us a little bit more about your your kind of short term and long-term plans for New Zealand and um kind of your I'm I'd like to get one of the 50 spots with the HF so we'll see I'm waiting here um you know if I can I'll catch a plane tomorrow um just you just better let me know whether I can get in um uh yeah I'm excited to go I've been planned I'm in each year I've been planning to go um so it's been a little while since I've been to New Zealand uh I've enjoyed from a distance and with the use of zoom uh advising uh companies and venture funds I'm actively looking for deals people should feel free to reach out to me offline uh my email is my name Andy Sackett gmail uh yeah that's great and so um kind of any software entrepreneur and then obviously I focus on crypto um it's kind of the that's your sweet spot for folks to reach out yeah I mean that's that's the easiest way there are other ways but it just it you know you get particularly if it's from New Zealand right now it requires uh um I'm a I'm a people person so you know it's hard it's it's just trickier to get me on a zoom call and build relation that when it's thousands of miles it's not impossible people have done it so and and I've made investments already in in a number of companies so oh yeah um well that's great uh any other questions for anyone in the room before we uh we wrap up yeah Kira um this has been really interesting conversation far more vibrant and real than some of the other sort of investor type who we have been involved in um yeah I like I'll take that as a compliment yeah it is and I don't compliment much Andy um but really really we'll get along well yeah I just wanted to say that in terms I get it throughout my mouldydom because that's where my passion lies um I mean I also hope you wanted the future to come through but a if you do please come to Taira 50 east coast because we've got great food great kai here um but more importantly I presume you understand the intergenerational ways of thinking that our business is operating so it's not so much about the here and now it's a little bit more about that building that relationship style so I'm just wondering if if you've managed to have a little bit of um understanding within kind of the criminal culture or if you need some or would like some um I I know enough to be super dangerous so I um I have beginner's mind I look forward to the education anyone that wants to hold my hand and teach me I'm I'm all ears yeah well I'll hold your hand if you come to our region east coast no problem that'd be my pleasure there'll be a lot of that Andy here there's a lot of opportunities to learn yeah and we'll we'll have them there for you particularly if you get to New Zealand yeah I'll just miss my return flight you know yeah yeah good reasons to go so Andy just to to reinforce we are working hard on the border at true we really hope to hear something soon things are moving behind the scenes but by bit but um just to to note this particular topic in this issue is one that is very close to the government's heart right now there's been quite a lot of work about how can we help to mature and amplify our innovation system so that it becomes an economic engine and they're even talking about a startup minister who I think they're appointing as minister Nash who's the minister for economic development so uh this so this is an area that because we believe that the EHF Fellows bring such a unique set of skills resources and perspectives to this that we are going to be holding a session in November where we're bringing together those from out here who can talk about the challenges within the system where there might be opportunity so we can begin to see and look at the areas that we can bring fellows together to really help at a systems level to mature and move our ecosystem forward so if you've got thoughts would love to hear that we're just sort of working through what the structure of that Rosalie I I'll just offer anything I can do to help feel free to ping me offline you know I think having the government support I mean government can play a meaningful role and you know and I applaud your efforts like it it's a labor of love and you know and things move inertia is a strong force so uh making change takes many years but you know like Seattle's like compared to where I was 20 years ago the entrepreneurial ecosystem if you get in Seattle is night and day compared to what it was so um yeah I think the opportunity is anything I can do to help I heard a question for you um I'm a VC in New Zealand I spent 20 years in Seattle actually working in Amazon and Microsoft before I moved back here to my home country so I can I've sort of seen also firsthand some of the changes that you're referring to and if I can kind of compare that journey to New Zealand like I think we're at a point now where you know you never have enough capital but there's an absolute bunch of capital in the country being raised domestically coming offshore from offshore funds that are trying to invest here invest to migrants that are you know with their wallets at the border trying to come in and bring a bunch of money I think where we struggle is really with talent and with you know human capital our universities are not necessarily you know world class I think from a tech point of view um we're putting less people into STEM every year so it's it's declining in terms of its popularity you know we don't have kind of the Microsoft's and the Amazon's here to spin people out so bringing talent in is quite critical to what is our constraining factor at the moment um but I'd observe that having people come for periods of short periods of time is helpful they can bring um knowledge and connections but having people that are willing to kind of move permanently um and sort of set up shop here I think is will be a breakthrough for us and when I think about the move between San Francisco and Seattle it seems like one of the drivers of that was actually the you know Trump you know pulling away the local tax deduction so Seattle just from a tax point of view became it was close to San Francisco right so you'd still get there and yet you didn't have to pay that income tax the high income taxes that you had to pay in California and so this notion of tax policy being supportive of bringing people more permanently to a place I'm just wondering how how you're thinking about Aotearoa New Zealand from that point of view because it seems quite a hard place to move from America from a tax point of view you can come and spend you know three to five months in the country every year but when you get over that kind of six months in the country and then fall into both countries tax nets you know I wonder to what extent you know that's something that's going to deter us being able to get talent permanently relocating here to start businesses in the same way as you saw like you know Glen Calmon you know the guy Nick from off the Kassar from Opera but there's a whole set of entrepreneurs that just said I'm done with San Francisco I want to be somewhere maybe that's a bit more family friendly and then they move to Seattle you know and I did I don't know if New Zealand is seen as a destination to do those sorts of moves what's what's your opinion on that I mean so you touch it I mean your comments are you touch on a number of things let me so one aspect that I want to touch on before I actually answer your question I you know just from a distance you know so all via zoom my sense is that that the lack of talent and entrepreneurial talent that is one thing that the United States is not lacked and and my sense is is that capital is lead I'm concerned for the New Zealand ecosystem that capital is leading the way over entrepreneurs I think that's you know so that's and that's a tougher problem I mean on some level we haven't talked about it means that probably your fathers are doing a much better job in New Zealand than the fathers in in the United States but you know the entrepreneurial um genes and and um instinct you know is very strong still in the United States how do you create that that's a tough that's a tough values you know values play um and having capital lead is a surefire way to both lose a lot of money and and dig a hole for the ecosystem so so that concerns me I don't know what to say about it just my sense what your comments resonated about yeah um separate from that uh you know you you moved pretty quickly to comments about relocation and tax advantages advantages and and attracting permanent talent to New Zealand I think that um you know there's a lot to be worked out within EHF I do think that taxes play a major role in in attracting and retaining talent in a location I've seen it even state-to-state in the United States I think that played some role in in Seattle's the you know the people as you mentioned people moving from Silicon Valley to Seattle you're seeing that and as well as other matters in the the rise excuse me of Austin so how that plays out in New Zealand I have not dug into sufficiently the uh what my what my tax feature looks like when I relocate to New Zealand I probably should but maybe I shouldn't I'm just going to go so um yeah so taxes are a big deal it turns out that you know if you look at it in the incentive system people follow period yeah there's more than tax for sure and getting people to kind of relocate here obviously but you know talent I think you're right the capital is a head of talent and we need to grow it internally but that's really long lead time um yeah and I don't in a short term is how do we get people to move here and it's hard and then so then you're like oh am I I'm importing entrepreneurs okay that um you can do that I mean you know the US did that from much of its history um and it worked well for us but um so I actually think that you know you're on the right path I would just um uh that that's actually a you know being even more aggressive on the the immigration of entrepreneurial talent separate from capital is probably uh something that I would I would lean into from a government and ecosystem perspective thanks yeah and the US isn't doing we're not doing ourselves any favors on the immigration front as of late maybe not as much as New Zealand is of life but well great I think that um that that was a great session it wraps everything up so if people want to reach out to you Andy Sack and Gmail uh it's the best way and you're also in the EHF um slack group yeah anyone that's in there so yeah my thanks thanks to Michelle and Rosalie you guys doing a great job everyone from EHF Aaron thanks for having me and for organizing this super helpful uh everyone thank you for your time and thanks everyone and the recordings of Aaron's session is also I've just put it on the the channel there the the live sessions interview is recorded there as well and Andy's will go up there either today or tomorrow and also look at the ones that we've got coming up next month as well and we just keep adding them over time but hi everyone and have a really good day enjoy the rest of your time and we'll see you next time take care everyone thank you bye bye