nonlinear
An interview show about the messy, winding path to doing meaningful work.
Episodes
From Virgin flight attendant to a $30M Series A | Samantha Cullen
Samantha Cullen is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of PlasmaLeap. PlasmaLeap develops tech that enables farmers to make fertiliser on-site using air, water and electricity. They raised a $30M Series A earlier this year, led by the Gates Foundation, Investible and Yara Growth Ventures,In this episode, Saurav and Sam discuss her path from flight attendant at Virgin to deeptech founder, w
From consulting to building autonomous robots | Shyeon Delnawaz
Shyeon Delnawaz is the co-founder of Puralink, a startup building autonomous pipe inspection robots.Saurav and Shyeon talk about the origin story behind Puralink, what living in both the US and Australia taught him about business, the sheer volume of rejection that comes with building a hardware startup, what makes a great engineering hire, how raising a pre-seed round enabled the team to execute
From software engineering to starting a bakery | Ben Lai
Ben Lai is the founder of Home Croissanterie, a bakery and cafe in Balmain, Sydney. Home was recently selected as one of just eight stalls to represent Sydney at the Good Food and Wine Festival.Previously, Ben studied computer science and spent years in a corporate software job, but never found meaning in the work. He cut his teeth in the culinary world by interning at world-class kitchens includi
From Google to Australia’s #1 AI podcast | Georgie Healy
Georgie Healy is the host of In the Blink of AI, Australia's leading AI podcast with 350K+ listens. She also writes the weekly Substack Attention Is All I Need.Previously, she launched Google’s AI First Accelerator in Australia and worked across tech, consulting, and investing globally. Georgie and Saurav talk about the discipline required to constantly learn new tools, why putting your person
From startup investing to building his own | Kevin Lu
Kevin Lu is the founder of Atrium, an AI comms and relations team built to help founders, execs, and investors manage and nurture relationships. Before founding, Kevin spent six years on the other side of the table as a VC at Reinventure and AirTree.Kevin and Saurav talk about the pain point that sparked Atrium, the joy of building with his brother, lessons from fundraising in the US versus Austra
From Eucalyptus to $100M robotics startup | Joe Harris
Joe Harris is the founder of Alloy, an AI-native data platform helping robotics companies manage their data and ship safer, more reliable robots. Alloy just closed an $11.5M seed round at a $115M valuation, backed by leading Australian VCs and angels from OpenAI, Tesla, Anthropic and more.Before Alloy, Joe led growth at telehealth company Eucalyptus, which recently sold to Hims for over $1 billion
From email newsletter to Australia's first sales school | Dan Brockwell
Dan is the co-founder of Earlywork, Australia's first sales school helping people build 6-figure careers in sales. He's also an R&B musician, performing under the name BROCKNROLL.Saurav and Dan chat about building a business around pain instead of passion, why he and his co-founders took the decision to pivot and halve their revenue, how posting online has been a huge source of opportu
From Canva PM to seven-figure design studio | Audrey T
Audrey runs Mapo Studio, offering product design for AI-first startups and scaleups like Heidi Health, Relevance AI, Eucalyptus and Lorikeet. She's also grown to over 100K followers across social media platforms, posting about working in tech, freelancing and running a business. In this episode, Audrey and Saurav talk about the importance of asking for what you want, what good AI product desig
From VC investor to debut novelist | Jessy Wu
Jessy Wu spent seven years as a management consultant and VC investor before walking away to do two things: start a business and write a novel. A year and a half later, she's done both — running her comms agency, Encour, and publishing her debut novel, Good Intentions.In this episode, Jessy and Saurav talk about why she left a stable career in finance to chase writing, how she turned her real expe
From redundancy to 1M+ podcast listeners | Vidit Agarwal
Vidit Agarwal is the Founder & CEO of Curiosity Centre, an Insights, Marketing & Consulting Firm trusted across the USA, Australia, India and New Zealand. He also hosts The High Flyers podcast, releasing over 250 episodes with senior leaders in tech, government, sports and beyond.But the path here was anything but linear. A below-average ATAR, a pathway diploma at RMIT, three years at Cole
Build Australia, startup marketing and sabbaticals | Franko Ali
Franko Ali has spent over a decade in marketing and storytelling, from growing YouTube channels at Discovery Media in San Francisco to brand-building for one of Australia's leading venture capital firms. This year, he's taking a sabbatical to reset while still staying in motion. He's helping to launch Build Australia: a grassroots movement turning collective anxiety about the future in
