Last week I had the pleasure of giving a guest speech at Harvard to the Australian students association spanning both Harvard and MIT. What started as a casual invite turned into one of the more memorable experiences I've had since moving to the US.
Huge thanks to Blackbird for hosting and sponsoring the event, and to the Australian cohort of Harvard and MIT for co-hosting me. It was an honor to be invited.
I was genuinely stoked that so many students came out despite the rain — the place was completely full, 100% RSVP attendance. That kind of turnout in this weather meant a lot to me.
Cambridge in December
First, let me just say: Cambridge is surprisingly beautiful. It's lowkey compared with stanford/berkeley campuses and mostly made of brick, but it has a lot of charm and character in a way I really liked.
The architecture alone is worth the trip. It's a stark contrast to the glass-and-steel aesthetic of San Francisco or the chaotic energy of NYC. Cambridge feels considered. Like someone actually thought about what it would feel like to walk through these spaces. The kind of place that makes you want to read more, think harder, and maybe finally finish that half-baked idea you've been sitting on.
The Students of the Future Are Terrifyingly Smart
I'll be honest—I was expecting sharp questions. I was not expecting the level of intellectual horsepower in that room.
These students aren't just smart in the "good at exams" way. They're systems thinkers. They see around corners. Within the first ten minutes, I had a PhD candidate from MIT grilling me on the technical architecture of our data pipelines, a business school student asking about unit economics in emerging markets, and an undergrad who wanted to debate the merits of vertical integration for some new method he had come up with for battery tech. One Perth guy even showed me a t shirt he had made with his own design for a new way of writing out algorithms which was pretty sick.
The takeaway? The next generation of founders are pretty clued on. They're not intimidated by complexity. They've grown up in a world where information is free, and they've learned to synthesize it in ways that would've taken my generation years to figure out.
The Deep Tech Questions
One theme dominated the Q&A: deep tech. The students wanted to know about:
- How to compete with well-funded incumbents when your advantage is technical rather than distribution
- Whether the AI wave is overhyped or if we're genuinely at an inflection point
- How to think about moats when your core technology could be replicated by a well-funded team in 18 months
- The role of patents and IP in deep tech (a topic close to my heart)
My general answer: deep tech is hard, but it's also where the real value creation happens. The trick is marrying technical innovation with distribution. The best deep tech companies I've seen aren't just R&D labs—they're commercializing from day one. They understand that the technology is necessary but not sufficient.
Also: AI is not overhyped. If anything, people underestimate how much it will reshape industries. But the window for pure-play AI startups is narrowing. The future belongs to companies that embed AI into specific verticals and own the data layer.
On Immigration: The Australia → US Pipeline
Inevitably, the conversation turned to immigration. A lot of these students are thinking about their post-graduation options, and "stay in the US vs. go back to Australia" is the existential question weighing on everyone's minds.
Here's my honest take:
If you want to build a globally significant technology company, the US is still the place to be. The capital markets, the talent density, the customer base, the network effects—nothing else comes close. Australia has improved dramatically as a startup ecosystem (shoutout to Blackbird and the broader community), but the ceiling is different.
That said, immigration to the US is hard and getting harder. The visa system is archaic, arbitrary, and designed for a world that no longer exists. My advice to the students:
- Start early. If you want to stay, start planning your visa strategy in your first year, not your last.
- O-1 is your friend. For founders and extraordinary talent, the O-1 visa is often the most viable path. Build your public profile, get press, file patents, win awards.
- Consider the long game. Some of the best Australian founders I know went back home for a few years, built something real, and then returned with leverage.
- Don't let visa uncertainty stop you from starting. Some of the biggest companies were founded by immigrants navigating the same broken system. It's a feature, not a bug, that you're forced to build something undeniable.
Australia punches above its weight in producing talent. The question is whether we can keep that talent connected to the Australian ecosystem even when they're building from San Francisco or New York.
Key Takeaways
- The talent pipeline is exceptional. If you're building something ambitious, go recruit at Harvard and MIT. Seriously.
- Deep tech is having a moment. The students are bullish on hard problems, not just software.
- Immigration remains the elephant in the room. The US is losing potential founders to visa uncertainty. It's a policy failure with real economic consequences.
- Australian founders need to stay connected. The diaspora is a superpower if we use it.
- Cambridge is beautiful. Go in winter. Walk along the river. You'll thank me.
Final Thoughts
To the Australian students at Harvard and MIT: thank you for having me. You asked better questions than most VCs I've pitched to. The future is in good hands.
And to anyone reading this who's thinking about the Australia → US journey: reach out. Happy to help however I can. The path is so fun and totally worth it.