The Business of Tech

In 2022, the Government signed an historic agreement granting Māori a share of radio spectrum suitable for 5G mobile services and a 20% share of all future commercial radio spectrum rights.

As the Chief Executive Officer of Tū Ātea, Antony Royal is putting that 5G spectrum to good use, with a major project underway to build and deploy the country's first commercial private 5G network. On The Business of Tech, Antony tra...

NZ's economic woes are complicated and many-headed, but business guru Andy Hamilton has exactly 26 ideas for ways it could be improved.

Some of them, like becoming part of Australia, are a bit dumb – but there are others that could have a lot of potential.

Hamilton also looks back at what it was like going through the We Are Indigo and Manaaki v Callaghan Innovation stoush, and talks through what he took away from the experie...

New Zealand is not stranger to tectonic shifts, perched as it is on a volcanic belt, but the current geopolitical quakes may prove an entirely different matter.

The University of Waikato's Dr Reuben Steff joins the podcast to argue that without joining the high tech-focused pillar two of the Australia, UK and US (AUKUS) agreement, NZ may find themselves at a major disadvantage in the new world order.

Plus, the US Defence Secre...

Bitcoin advocate Cody Ellingham joins the podcast to explain why we he is advocating for everyone, everywhere to get into the cryptocurrency.

Ellingham explains his vision for how Bitcoin could put people's financial power back into their hands, rather than under the control of financial institutions and governments.

Plus, we talk AI language Gibberlink and Apple's $500 billion promise to Trump.

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Chris Moore and Lucas Coelho, two-thirds of the co-founding team of venture studio Ryft, join the podcast to talk through how the model works.

They discuss the benefits and challenges of being an all-in-one startup shop, why they are focusing on artificial intelligence, and give their highly informed takes on the current state of the AI landscape.

Plus, what to look for in Spark's upcoming results and we address some listener feedb...

It's been a tumultuous first year for NZ's first AI-focused company to list on the New Zealand Exchange (NZX).

Following on from a recent article on BusinessDesk, we unpack that journey so far and look ahead to what might be next for the contentious but ambitious company.

This week, we have a double feature with an interview with entrepreneur extrodinaire Rowan Simpson to follow on Sunday, so make sure you subscribed to get that in...

This week we speak to Max Ferguson who started Lumin in 2010 to address a growing need for a robust, cloud-based way to edit and share portable document format files, better known as PDFs.

15 years on and Lumin has over 100 million users worldwide and is successfully rolling out more document collaboration products and features, managing to find success with the often-tricky freemium model.

Plus, what's the latest on Deepseek, and ...

Last week, Te Hiku Media chief executive and one of Time magazine's most influential people in AI, Peter-Lucas Jones, spoke to the world leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

As our featured guest this week, Jones explains how the Kaitaia-based media company is using AI to save native languages across the globe.,

Plus, cutting through the noise on what DeepSeek actually is and does.

Reading list.

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SailGP's chief technology officer Warren Jones goes deep into all the ways he and his team have integrated digital technologies into the very foundation of the sport changing the nature of racing.

Plus, the ramifications for New Zealand and the world-at-large of the technology billionaires buying their way into US President Donald Trump's good graces.

The Business of Tech is sponsored by 2degrees for Business.

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Other than a few big-swing failures, it’s been a bit of a holding pattern for consumer technologies this year, with many minor improvements but nothing truly revolutionary.

This week, Peter and Ben are unpacking all that and more as they dive into the consumer products and services from 2024 they thought were good, bad, and just plain silly.

Topics include the series of disappointments that were built-in artificial intelligen...

We're joined by four stellar journalists who discuss what they saw over the last year and look ahead to what may be yet to come. 

BusinessDesk’s senior markets reporter Rebecca Stevenson offers a deep dive into Rakon's failed takeover and unpacks Gentrack’s success – and the questions that success raises. 

Rob O’Neill, senior reporter at IT industry news outlet Reseller, unpacks the waves of redund...

Steve Vamos' career in tech has spanned decades, starting with IBM straight out of university in the 1980’s, followed by stints at Apple, NineMSN, Microsoft, and Xero.

He says that connecting with people and being open to criticism are key skills for leaders navigating through times of major change.

Vamos also shares more specific advice on navigating change, having hard conversations, and the importance of character.

Plus, Ben and...

Peter was in California for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying more satellites to support One NZ's satellite to mobile connectivity. 

We dig into the details of that deal, including whether competitors can possibly keep up.

Then, our featured guest is Alex Kendall, one of NZ's most successful tech expats in recent years.

Alex Kendall is the founder of Wayve, an autonomous vehicles company that raised US$1 billion earlier th...

Last year, we prematurely dubbed 2023 the year of AI but how could we have know what 2024 would bring.

Generative AI has solidified it's position in the pantheon of disruptive technologies as hype settled into pragmatism and tech talent across the world put it to work.

We've assembled three AI experts from across NZ's industry to talk about the year in AI that was, and look ahead at what to expect in the year to come.

Our panel con...

\We're diving into data with Snowflake's New Zealand country manager Tony Shaw.

Shaw shares how any size of organisation can benefit from data analytics and AI, emphasising the importance of having high-quality, consolidated information to drive business outcomes. 

He also talks generative AI and the role that good data practice has in realising its potential and mitigating risks.

Plus, tech under Trump: the influence of tech billi...

New Zealand's big bet on fibre has paid off in spades, according to a new report by Deloitte that found the $5.5 billion that government and private companies invested into the super fast internet infrastructure has delivered $31b in value due to productivity gains.

Two economists from Deloitte Access Economics, Liza Van Der Merwe and Mayuresh Prasad, walk us through the findings from that report, and what the future may hold for f...