In this episode of Open the Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner sits down with Ella Greer, AI Customer Engineer at Google Cloud, for a deep dive into how AI is actually being built, deployed, and scaled inside real businesses today.

Ella works hands-on with some of Australia’s leading companies — from startups to enterprise — helping them design and implement AI roadmaps. This conversation cuts through the hype and focuses on what’s really happening on the ground: from early experimentation to production-scale AI systems.

They cover:

• The shift from AI experimentation to real-world deployment and scale
• What an “AI Customer Engineer” actually does inside Google
• Why startups are still the most exciting (and fastest-moving) AI adopters
• What “agents” and “agentic systems” really mean — explained simply
• How companies are moving from proof-of-concept to real business outcomes
• Why the SaaS model is under pressure — and what replaces it
• Where the new “moats” are in an AI-first world (data, verticalisation, expertise)
• The rise of usage-based pricing and token-driven business models
• How AI is reshaping product development, engineering, and startup costs
• Why great engineers still matter — and what skills actually endure
• How founders should think about AI today (and why it’s no longer optional)

They also explore:

• The future of AI pricing — why intelligence gets cheaper, but better models cost more
• Whether AGI is close (and why definitions matter)
• The role of DeepMind as Google’s research engine
• Why AI adoption is still uneven — and why most people aren’t using it deeply (yet)
• How founders and investors should evaluate AI companies in a noisy market

Ella brings a practical, engineering-first perspective with clear takeaways for founders, operators, and investors navigating the AI shift.

Quick Fire Round
📚 Book recommendation – Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
🎧 Podcast recommendation – Latent Space (AI engineering deep dives)
🗞️ News source – Alpha Signal (AI research + repo summaries)
👩‍💼 Favourite leader – Lila Ibrahim (COO, DeepMind / Chief AI Readiness Officer)
🛠️ Productivity tool – Gemini CLI (with strong context engineering)
📺 TV / entertainment – Married at First Sight (pure brain-off viewing)

A sharp, grounded conversation on where AI is actually delivering value — and what to do about it.

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In this episode of Open the Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner sits down with long-time friend and tech leader Matt Loop, now Head of Asia Pacific at Rippling.

Matt has been at the heart of SaaS for two decades. From opening Salesforce’s first Australian office out of his Bondi apartment, to helping LinkedIn scale across Asia and the US, guiding Slack through the chaos of COVID, and now leading Rippling’s rapid expansion across APAC — Matt has lived through (and helped build) some of the most iconic software companies of our time.

They cover:

• Opening Salesforce AU with nothing but a laptop and a dream

• Lessons from LinkedIn’s hypergrowth and $26B acquisition by Microsoft

• Scaling Slack globally during the pandemic and its $27B acquisition by Salesforce

• Building Rippling’s Australian business from scratch to 100+ people in two years

• The hard realities of scaling from 10 → 100 people (and why it’s “really bloody hard”)

• How to hire and evaluate top sales talent (including Matt’s playbook)

• Product-led growth vs sales-led growth, and why the best companies do all three (PLG, SLG, and community-led)

• How Rippling is using AI today — and where it’s headed

• Scaling culture across regions and why “toxic hires” can kill momentum

• Liquidity, secondaries, and the trade-offs of staying private at $16B+ valuation

Matt is a natural storyteller with practical lessons for founders, operators, and investors — and plenty of laughs along the way.

Quick Fire Round
📚 Book recommendation – Going Infinite by Michael Lewis (Sam Bankman-Fried story)
🎧 Podcast recommendation – SmartLess (Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes)
🗞️ News source – AFR, LinkedIn Newsfeed, and a mix of global outlets
👨‍💼 Favourite CEO – Satya Nadella (plus reflections on Benioff, Jeff Weiner, Stewart Butterfield, and Parker Conrad)
🛠️ Productivity tool – Slack (still his #1)
📱 Favourite app – Slack (for staying connected to work + investor/advisory communities)
📺 TV / movie recommendation – Mob Land (Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Tom Hardy), plus Yellowstone and the Taylor Sheridan spin-offs
🎤 TED Talk topic – The evolution of US sports: from blue-collar pastime to corporate billion-dollar industry

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In this episode, Ian sits down with Evan Walden, CEO of Getro—a startup rethinking how VCs support their portfolio companies through meaningful connections and talent networks. From his early days at General Assembly to leading a platform used by top-tier VC firms, Evan shares candid insights on leadership, founder relationships, startup career pathways, and why authentic networking matters more than ever.

Whether you're a founder, investor, or ecosystem builder, this conversation is packed with practical ideas and fresh perspectives on value creation in venture capital.

🔑 Key Conversation Highlights:

• From Philosophy to Tech:
  Evan’s unconventional path from studying philosophy to building tech platforms that empower communities and ecosystems.

• Lessons from General Assembly:
  The founding journey, scaling a mission-driven business, and how career outcomes, not just education, shaped their growth.

• The Power of “Network-Driven Outcomes”:
  Why intros and warm connections still drive results, and how Getro helps VCs operationalise this at scale.

• Rebuilding the VC Tech Stack:
  What most venture firms get wrong about talent support—and why the future of VC is about network intelligence.

• Getro’s Origin Story:
  From internal project to standalone company, and what it’s like spinning out of a fund like OnDeck.

• Tactical Advice for VCs:
  How to actually help founders. Hint: it’s not just capital. Evan shares real strategies around intros, hiring, and network mapping.

Quick Fire Round:

📚 Book recommendation – The Great CEO Within - There's a PDF that's available for free, but to me this is like the Bible for any startup founder and I would just recommend anyone starting a company go get it like right now.
🎧 Podcast recommendation – This Jungian Life - not business related but a funny poscast to listen to
🗞️ News source – I've actually been using X a lot more recently. I realised once I curated who I follow it became the best place to learn about the nuances of what's getting built in AI and tech, stuff that never makes it into the news cycle.
👨‍💼 Favourite CEO – Collison brothers (Founders of Stripe) for their ability to build a massive company while maintaining their value system and Brian Chesky (Founder of Airbnb).
🛠️ Productivity tool – Superhuman and chatGPT
📱 Favourite app – Whisper Flow - a speech to text app that's 99% accurate
📺 TV or movie recommendation – I'm half way through The Last of Us
🎤 TED Talk topic – Networking doesn't have to suck: building authentic relationships in a world of fakeness.

The Innovation Bay job board is powered by Getro. Looking for your dream role? We have you covered with over 450 open roles across almost 5000 companies: https://jobs.innovationbay.com/jobs

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.