Sachin and Adam
SachinandAdam
14 episodes
She Raised $1B to Build Something Nobody Has Built Before
30 Oct · 34 min
- Pacific Fusion raised a $1B Series A and credits milestone-gated biotech-style financing for reaching groundbreaking in under three years.
- Its roadmap runs from a 156-module pulsar driver in Albuquerque to net facility gain by 2030 and a first power plant by the mid-2030s.
$740M AI Hearing CEO: Can a $6,800 Hearing Aid Reach Everyone?
17 Sept · 51 min
- Fortell's double-blind trial against a top hearing aid found 19 times higher odds of hearing words correctly in noise and a nine dB SNR gain.
- Fortell chose to build its own brand and full-stack audiology business with clinics instead of licensing its technology.
$4B AI Drug Founder: Left OpenAI, $1T Eli Lilly Signed On, Designing Drugs in 24 Hours
15 Sept · 41 min
- Chai Discovery's models lift antibody design success from about 0.1% in the lab to 15-16% with Chai-2 and more than double that with Chai-3.
- Eli Lilly adopted Chai's technology quickly and stress tests its models at scale, helping set Chai's research roadmap.
$7B Quantum Founder: Should Capitalism Decide Who Gets This Technology? Quantum Machines by 2030
13 Sept · 49 min
- Pete Shadbolt says no useful quantum computer exists today, yet PsiQuantum is building a million-qubit machine by decade's end.
- Shadbolt argues AI cannot solve the hardest chemistry problems, and drug and battery chemistry customers will need quantum's first-principles calculations.
Meet the Artist Who Left Silicon Valley - and Built a $5B AI Lab
11 Sept · 40 min
- Runway co-founder and co-CEO Anastasis Germanidis says the company has shifted from taking on Hollywood to real-time physics simulation with its general world model.
- All major film studios use Runway across pre-production, production and post-production.
Unpacking Zach Dell's $1B Energy Bet Taking on Tesla and the Power Grid | Zach Dell Interview
10 Sept · 1 h 0 min
- Zach Dell's Base Power has raised over $1bn for a vertically integrated home-battery model that installs batteries, serves the grid, and shares revenue with customers as lower prices.
- Base Power holds an Illinois retail license and has announced five deals with regulated utilities, positioning it to expand beyond Texas.
AI Roundtable Unfiltered: The Truth About Hype, Talent Wars & Global AI
13 Aug 2025 · 1 h 45 min
- Dan Palmer says an AI funding bubble is almost inevitable and many bets will fail.
- Michelle Gilmore rejects the premise that AI valuations must be justified, citing Mira Murati's $2bn raise as a bet on pedigree.
Charlie Gearside: Leaving $560M Startup To Reshape Australia's Future
3 Jun 2025 · 59 min
- Charlie Gearside left Eucalyptus, the $560m telehealth company he co-founded, in late 2024, calling it one of his hardest decisions.
- He says Australia's last 30 years of juicing property and minerals peaked at the 2000 Olympics, leaving young people facing housing and wage problems.
Uber's 1st Head of Product: Untold Stories, Working w/ Travis & Surviving Her $25M Startup Collapse...
7 May 2025 · 46 min
- Mina Radhakrishnan, Uber's first head of product, says Travis Kalanick taught her to ask 'how can you do it?' rather than 'can you do it?'
- Her startup Different went through voluntary administration, and she worked full-time as a recruiter for employees, saying recovery from failure is what matters.
Zeller’s Ben Pfisterer: Australia's FASTEST $1B valuation, Cutting Bureaucracy & Why Banks NEED Competition
11 Mar 2025 · 43 min
- Zeller hit unicorn status a few months after going live, a milestone Ben Pfisterer says the team zipped past without noticing.
- Zeller launched Zeller for Startups recently, giving startups tiered account access and investor read-only views.
A Seasoned Founder Gives us Marketing Advice with Henry Innis
27 Jun 2024 · 56 min
- Henry Innis calls pure-play brand campaigns without products one of the most dangerous things ever created.
- Innis built Mutinex as an in-house model of marketing dynamics and argues budgets should be planned on outcomes and treated as capital allocation.
Our toughest week yet launching our startup
30 May 2024 · 32 min
- Kindling's launch week delivers strong KPIs, but an Australian Financial Review article using Sachin and Adam as a straw man in the women-funding debate clouds it.
- Adam says the criticism builds conviction and he wants to discuss funding bias with influential industry figures.
How to stand out in content (our meeting made public)
15 May 2024 · 41 min
- Sachin and Adam hire John, a Filipino video editor, from 400 applicants, choosing taste over skills.
- David Perell calls their nearly two-hour episode one of his best and later advises them to keep the quality bar extremely high.
Why We Quit Our Jobs to Build a Tech Company
8 May 2024 · 36 min
- Sachin Shah and Adam Miller quit venture capital and consulting jobs to build Kindling, an APAC technology media company.
- Their podcast's big break was getting Malcolm Turnbull, a former Australian prime minister, on the show, with clips reaching millions of viewers.