The Pathways & Padlocks Conversation
00:35:31 · Sid Dissanayake, Sachin
[00:35:31] S1: Yeah, no, was going to say, for those non business students, what is a private equity fund? Can you explain that? [00:35:35] S0: So private equity is an investment class where you invest in private companies, and a lot of the time you buy them out, make them more efficient, and then sell them again. So it's essentially but the reason why people sometimes can consider it evil is there's a lot of cost cutting that goes on and a lot of it's a very what's the right way of describing it? It's a very cutthroat kind of industry. Yeah. And a quick example is that a private equity firm, Bain Capital, bought Virgin Airlines when they were kind of with this COVID period. So Andy Cooper's Fund, they're a social impact private equity. And what they've done is they've bought up a few insurance companies in Africa. And in Africa, a lot of people, I think the majority of the population is uninsured because there's this informational asymmetry problem where the banks don't have enough information on the individual people to insure them, right? And so what they did is they've bought some of these companies and they've changed them up to now insure based on mobile phones. So they can track some of the data of the people on mobile phones. And through that, they've gotten hundreds of millions of people insured, which is awesome. And it's a completely viable business model. So yeah, I think we're living in an exciting time. And to come back to your first point, the first one of your question, which was about that uncertainty that you have in university and
00:35:35 · Sachin, Sid Dissanayake
[00:35:35] S0: So private equity is an investment class where you invest in private companies, and a lot of the time you buy them out, make them more efficient, and then sell them again. So it's essentially but the reason why people sometimes can consider it evil is there's a lot of cost cutting that goes on and a lot of it's a very what's the right way of describing it? It's a very cutthroat kind of industry. Yeah. And a quick example is that a private equity firm, Bain Capital, bought Virgin Airlines when they were kind of with this COVID period. So Andy Cooper's Fund, they're a social impact private equity. And what they've done is they've bought up a few insurance companies in Africa. And in Africa, a lot of people, I think the majority of the population is uninsured because there's this informational asymmetry problem where the banks don't have enough information on the individual people to insure them, right? And so what they did is they've bought some of these companies and they've changed them up to now insure based on mobile phones. So they can track some of the data of the people on mobile phones. And through that, they've gotten hundreds of millions of people insured, which is awesome. And it's a completely viable business model. So yeah, I think we're living in an exciting time. And to come back to your first point, the first one of your question, which was about that uncertainty that you have in university and [00:37:01] S1: Yeah, yeah.
00:37:01 · Sid Dissanayake, Sachin
[00:37:01] S1: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:01] S0: I think what I'd say to your audience is it's always going be there. Never think that uncertainty is going to be there. Through our podcast, we've talked to some people that we would all deem really successful. And trust me, they're as confused as you. No one ever has their life figured out. They pretend to know it. Like when I say I want to start a social impact VC, there's so many moments when I second guess that, right? Like, don't everyone in the, especially in the business and law world, everyone projects this sense of knowing what's going on because that's how they, you know, make that's how they sell their product or they, you know, actually But do well in the internally, everyone has this element of imposter syndrome. In university, think about where you want to go that macro that top down that approach I was talking about before. And whatever path you think you're gonna do to get there, it's not gonna be. There's gonna be so many iterations and weird wacky routes along the way. [00:37:55] S1: Yeah, I mean, for those university students out there who might be interested in social impact and social justice, and they may want to develop their interests even more. Obviously, are in that space at university. You know, I don't know much about it. So I want you know, pick your brains as much as possible. In your own experience, are there are there ways that students can get involved in social impact and social entrepreneurship at university?
00:37:55 · Sid Dissanayake, Sachin
[00:37:55] S1: Yeah, I mean, for those university students out there who might be interested in social impact and social justice, and they may want to develop their interests even more. Obviously, are in that space at university. You know, I don't know much about it. So I want you know, pick your brains as much as possible. In your own experience, are there are there ways that students can get involved in social impact and social entrepreneurship at university? [00:38:23] S0: Yeah. So 100. So there's a good society that you're from UNSW, right? Think UNSW Macquarie, all the big Unis have it, which is called Enactus, is essentially about building social enterprises. And I think that's a really good introduction into that world and into that world of how business and social impact can correlate together. How so I personally believe that actually, why don't we take a step back? Yeah, [00:38:49] S1: please.
00:38:49 · Sid Dissanayake, Sachin
[00:38:49] S1: please. [00:38:49] S0: So stereotypically, have your for profit business. Think like Westpac, think like Qantas, something like that. And then on the other end, have your charity. So think like Oxfam, World Vision, etcetera, right? The social enterprise space exists in the middle, right? It exists with the same purpose as these not for profits. But the way it's different is that these social enterprises are using their business model to scale. They're not relying on donations. They're using their own business model to scale up and continue to reinvest into reaching more people, right? And so, again, back to your question about ways to get involved in university, and NACDA is a good one. A 1A degree consulting is good because you consult for a variety of these organizations, but the space is growing in Australia and it's growing rapidly. And so there's a lot of opportunities that startups that are doing really cool stuff solving really important problems to intern at or to work out. Just a few off the top of my head, one is called ability me, which is in the disability space Where actually Mike Cannon-Brookes just supported a new climate change fund for kind of startups that are combating climate change. So we're going to see a lot of new startups in that space coming forward. So it's an exciting time to be a university student.
00:40:09 · Sid Dissanayake
[00:40:09] S1: Yeah, I mean, just to cap off, I suppose this that particular part of the conversation. You know, I think it's no secret that, you know, you're someone who really got the most out of their university experience by putting themselves out there and embracing the idea of self development and exploration. So I suppose a quite an open ended question. Based on your own experience, what advice would you give to someone out there who is still figuring out their passions and interests whilst at university? What advice would you give to that person to really maximise and get the most out of their experience?