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PODCAST

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast

Hg sits at the centre of a universe of tech and software knowledge and expertise. We are constantly surprised by the ideas generated by these satellite minds and we want to share some of it with you. Join us for conversation with the experts, leaders and founders in our orbit.

technology management

All Episodes

00:27:01

The corporate immune system: Google Cloud's Daniël...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2026/01/16

Daniël Rood, director of AI go-to-market at Google Cloud, offers a masterclass in navigating transformation from inside a tech giant. Building Google's first European AI team when gen AI was still "a PhD science project," Rood reveals the hidden resistance mechanisms that plague even innovative organizations. His concept of the "corporate immune system"—the culture that protects success for all the right reasons but resists dramatic shifts—explains why customer success stories, not internal

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00:50:06

Skin in the game: Professor Neil Lawrence on...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/12/18

From oil rigs to Amazon's machine learning division and now Cambridge's DeepMind chair, Professor Neil Lawrence brings a refreshingly grounded perspective to AI. Lawrence introduces his "atomic human" concept; arguing it's not our capabilities but our vulnerabilities and limitations that make us irreplaceable. Drawing on experiences watching his coding assistant try to claim authorship and building systems at Amazon, he illuminates why accountability requires skin in the game and why machines can

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00:29:10

The 3 speed problem: Jason Richards speaks to Oji...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/12/09

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00:38:32

Fevered determination: Building Zalos from zero to...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/11/25

In this illuminating conversation from the frontier of AI-native startups, William Fairbairn, founder of Zalos.ai and part of Y Combinator's class of 2025, reveals what it takes to build at Silicon Valley velocity. Just five weeks after launch, Zalos is already deployed with major enterprise customers, automating finance workflows through computer-use agents that execute tasks like humans—extracting contract terms, initiating billing, and reconciling cash.Fairbairn's insights into Y Combinator's

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00:41:56

Trust, Velocity, and Building the Answer Engine:...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/10/28

In this fascinating conversation, Perplexity's Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko reveals how a company barely three years old is mounting the first credible challenge to Google's search dominance in two decades. Shevelenko shares the counterintuitive distribution strategy that led Perplexity to partner with mobile carriers and device manufacturers rather than chasing browser deals, explaining how creating mutual value with partners became their path to 22 million monthly active users.The

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00:36:05

The long road to the last mile : Nic Humphries and...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/09/24

In this candid anniversary conversation, Hg's leadership team of Matthew Brockman and Nic Humphries reflects on 25 years of building one of Europe's most focused software investors. Humphries shares the challenge of convincing colleagues to abandon multiple sectors for pure software focus, while Brockman opens up about his leap of faith in 2010, leaving Apax Partners for an uncertain bet on Hg's vision and the turbulence of 2012 that eventually led to success.The conversation hones in on AI as

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00:47:49

AI, Control Points, and the Next Wave of Vertical...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/06/05

In this compelling conversation, Tidemark Capital founder Dave Yuan shares his journey from Bain consultant to building one of the most thoughtful voices in vertical SaaS investing. Yuan reveals his "control point" philosophy—identifying the mission-critical systems that small businesses would turn off last before going bankrupt—and explains how this approach has guided Tidemark's investments in category leaders like ServiceTitan, Toast, and OneStream. His insights into workflow gravity, data

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00:30:52

Refounding in the face of AI with Des Traynor of...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/05/21

Orbit 48 sees Dr Amr Ellabban sit down with Des Traynor, co-founder and CSO of Intercom, to explore how AI requires revolutionary thinking from businesses. Des shares the pivotal moment when ChatGPT emerged in November 2022, spurring Intercom's bold 15-day pivot to develop Fin, their AI customer support agent. The conversation reveals how successful AI transformation demands complete organisational commitment—from reimagining pricing models to restructuring teams—rather than incremental changes:

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00:39:53

A golden age of software engineering with Russell...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/04/17

What happens when AI can code? In this illuminating conversation with Cognition's Founding President Russell Kaplan, we explore how AI is fundamentally transforming the landscape of software development. Drawing from his journey through Tesla's Autopilot team and Scale AI, Kaplan shares profound insights on leadership in rapid technological change, emphasizing that "talent is everything" and that exceptional outcomes come from "small teams of highly technical people." His perspective challenges

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00:29:16

Quick and dirty prototypes with Andrew Ng

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/03/18

In this episode of Orbit, Matthew Brockman, Managing Partner at Hg, sits down with renowned AI pioneer Andrew Ng to explore the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Andrew, who has led ground-breaking initiatives at Stanford AI Lab, Google Brain, and Coursera, shares fascinating insights on building in the AI era, including how the falling costs of prototyping (just $55,000 to create a working prototype) are democratising innovation and allowing companies to take more shots at goal with minimal risk.

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00:29:03

A glimpse of the next generation: Zoe Zhao and...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2025/01/21

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00:53:24

Incubation, experimentation and implementation: the...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/12/12

In our latest episode Hg’s Managing Partner, Matthew Brockman, presses two CEOs and an AI insider on how a business leader can usefully integrate generative AI into their business workflows. David Carmona, a VP and CTO at Microsoft, Avaneesh Marwaha, CEO of US legal tech producer Litera, and Soeren Brogaard, CEO of Danish construction innovators, Trackunit, cover the swift advancements in AI that are redefining industry workflows. These experts explore the journey from AI incubation to mass

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00:42:54

Risk-taking & Resilience with Sukhinder Singh-Cassidy...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/12/02

Hg’s Joe Jefferies sits down with Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the CEO of Xero, to unravel the intricacies of leading a global software company and the personal journey that brought her to the helm. With a history of bold moves at tech behemoths like Amazon and Google, Singh Cassidy shares her philosophy on risk-taking, revealing how a series of strategic bets rather than any singular decision shaped her illustrious career.From a father's entrepreneurial spirit; to navigating a rocky job market

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00:37:47

Vulnerability as strength in business: Nick Mehta of...

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/11/07

In this enlightening episode of the Hg podcast series Orbit, host Joe Jefferies converses with Nick Mehta, the long-standing CEO of Gainsight, about the intersection of vulnerability and leadership in building a successful software company. Nick candidly describes his philosophy of "human-first" leadership, which has become a cornerstone of Gainsight's culture. He recounts his journey from childhood ambitions instilled by his father to the challenges he faced fitting in, and how these experiences

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00:40:00

Thousands of small experiments

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/10/15

As the CEO of Scandinavian software success story, Visma, this is Merete Hverven's second appearance on Orbit. Last time she pondered the reasons behind the Nordics' outsized contribution to the world of software, this time the same values of openness, competency over hierarchy and willingness to experiment come into play when running a scaled multinational conglomerate. With the complete opposite of a one-size-fits-all approach, Visma has partnered with companies across 32 different countries,

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00:38:54

The art of pattern recognition

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/09/26

A veteran of the software industry for 25 years, Darren Roos is a disciple of the wisdom that failure breeds success. Battlescars that bring perspective and greater awareness of how to guard against the pitfalls of tough economic environments. He assures Hg's Nic Humphries that his abilities are not a result of intellect but rather hard-won experience; over two decades of seeing the same patterns reappear.Now the Chairman of enterprise software giant, IFS, he looks back at his arrival as CEO - a

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00:36:35

Do tech leaders have to be tech experts?

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/09/03

As CEO of IRIS Software, Elona Mortimer-Zhika has been a valued part of the Hg Orbit for 8 years and counting. In Orbit 39, she speaks to long-term friend and Hg's Senior Partner, Nic Humphries, about her unusal path to tech leadership:from Communist Albania to retail jobs in the UK and on to an audit career for Deloitte. Tracking the stratospheric progress of IRIS over the last decade and considering the effects of private equity investment, Nic and Elona discuss whether or not you need to be a

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00:42:16

The business case for AI

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/08/13

In the final Orbit recorded at Hg's recent 'Software Leadership Gathering', we brought together three perspectives all investigating the AI wave through a business lens.With the technology in an early phase, it can be viewed as an existential threat for businesses but without a clear path to commercialisation. Brent Hayward of Salesforce, David Carmona of Microsoft and Nagraj Kashyap of Touring Capital discuss what’s actually working today for businesses, where they should be focusing their

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00:24:19

The greatest tech comes when we ignore ROI

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/07/23

Inspired by watching the surge in space exploration during his childhood in 70s India, through the 80s microchip era and on into the internet boom and a 25-year career innovating software at a large enterprise scale - Netscape, Bang Networks and finally VMware – Raghu Raghuram can claim authority and perspective on close to the entirety of our industry. He has seen epochal change before and grown with it.Speaking at Hg's recent 'Software Leadership Gathering', Raghu tells Hg’s Alan Cline about the

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00:29:59

Mastering the billion-dollar software playbook

Orbit - An Hg software leadership podcast ·

2024/06/27

Born of the same crucible as Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, Joe Lonsdale and Eric Poirier have been building and investing in software for over two decades. As the General Partner of 8VC and the CEO of Addepar respectively, they have seen industries evolve and innovate.Speaking at Hg's recent 'Software Leadership Gathering', Matthew Brockman asked them how - since software has allowed new entrants to compete with the old guard - what areas could AI open up? Applying AI to existing

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