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Speaker 1: Welcome to One on one by Fear and Greed. I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson. My guest today is Fred Schabster. Now everybody

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Speaker 1: has heard of Finder. That's the comparison website that aims

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Speaker 1: to help people make better decisions. Fred started it with

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Speaker 1: a friend back in two thousand and six. It is

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Speaker 1: now used by millions of people here and around the world.

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Speaker 1: But there is a fascinating story behind it. It's a

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Speaker 1: story about creativity, about passion, about drive, about success, about wealth,

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Speaker 1: and moments as well where it nearly all came undone.

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Speaker 1: Fred Schabester, Welcome to one on one.

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Speaker 2: Thanks very much.

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Speaker 1: Finder. When I said that two thousand and six, find

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Speaker 1: us nearly twenty years old. When you look back on it,

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Speaker 1: do you have a sense of pride at what you've built?

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Speaker 2: It kind of goes in phases, you know, like it's

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Speaker 2: a bit like a marriage. Really. I think it's like,

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Speaker 2: you know, seven years I think is the number when

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Speaker 2: you sort of reset in their relationship. I will, it's

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Speaker 2: like you have a certain relationship with the company, and

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Speaker 2: over time, eventually I think it just turns into a

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Speaker 2: bit of a blur. Like I think if you were

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Speaker 2: to go back sort of and ask me that, Like,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, ten years ago, I'd be like, wow,

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Speaker 2: this is crazy, And now I feel like this is evolution,

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Speaker 2: Like a company grows from like, you know, a little

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Speaker 2: little baby to a toddler to a teenager, and now

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Speaker 2: it's kind of like in its twenties. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: like and so it's it doesn't It's not as much

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Speaker 2: awe for me. It's more like, you know, this is solid.

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Speaker 2: This is where we've been.

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Speaker 1: Well, when you think about it, it predates kind of

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Speaker 1: a lot of things that we almost take for granted

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Speaker 1: now in terms of kind of Instagram came around after

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Speaker 1: Finder started, You're around the same time as kind of

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Speaker 1: Facebook and others all started. So you have been around

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Speaker 1: for a long time and established yourself so well now

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Speaker 1: in the market. Do you have a sense of perspective then,

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Speaker 1: on what the value and the purpose of Finder is

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Speaker 1: in your words, kind of what exactly is at the

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Speaker 1: heart of what you do.

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Speaker 2: I think I speak to a lot of customers, you know,

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Speaker 2: and we spend a lot of time doing that to

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Speaker 2: try and unpack exactly what's going on here. And if

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Speaker 2: I was to like boil it down very simply and

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Speaker 2: I've heard this is direct from a customer. Is they

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Speaker 2: want to find a better deal, and that deal is

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Speaker 2: the one that you know, you could go and Google search,

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Speaker 2: you could go and go on forums, but it's all

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Speaker 2: aggregated into one place, and you're looking for that, you know,

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Speaker 2: like at a swap meet, and you you know, I

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Speaker 2: don't know if they do this anymore. People used to

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Speaker 2: drive up and open their boots and like sell stuff

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Speaker 2: out of them and you'd rummage around and find a

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Speaker 2: little gem that's worth a lot and you'd pay a

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Speaker 2: lot less. And that idea that there exists some deal

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Speaker 2: in the market. Some curiosity is what people come to

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Speaker 2: find before and obviously there's time saving and there's all

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Speaker 2: those other things, but at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: they're looking for that little edge, that little bump, and

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Speaker 2: that that curiosity, that that idea that there's something, the

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Speaker 2: treasure that exists. I think that's the that's the mystery

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Speaker 2: that the finder has.

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Speaker 1: It's such an interesting take on it because for me,

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Speaker 1: the value that I see is that there is such

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Speaker 1: a sense of overwhelm at the moment. There are so

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Speaker 1: many decisions to be made in life that the mental

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Speaker 1: load is huge and the idea of having to go

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Speaker 1: around and do it all yourself and find all that

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Speaker 1: information yourself is almost just overwhelming, And that to me

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Speaker 1: is kind of where I can see such a clear

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Speaker 1: value for a starte like Finder. I want to talk

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Speaker 1: to you more about the purpose and the value, but

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Speaker 1: I want to go back to the start if we can,

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Speaker 1: because it is such a great story of how it

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Speaker 1: came to be. But it wasn't actually your first business, though,

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Speaker 1: was it. It was your second business. Tell me about

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Speaker 1: the first one was at Freestyle Media.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I started building websites in my college room at university,

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Speaker 2: and like everyone was coding sort of Java, and I

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Speaker 2: was coding like PHP, which is sort of one of

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Speaker 2: the early Internet languages, and like I couldn't you know?

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Speaker 2: It didn't didn't really help accepted. The very last year

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Speaker 2: there was a course that started in PHP and I

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Speaker 2: just walked in, coded the assignment in the classroom, handed

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Speaker 2: it in and then everyone was like in the classes

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Speaker 2: like whoa, this is crazy, Like how could you possibly

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Speaker 2: know that? And I went to the exam, didn't study.

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Speaker 2: I just filled in the whole exam and like I

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Speaker 2: was just so forward in what I was doing and

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Speaker 2: I realized that that's that's a key edge, and I

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Speaker 2: just pushed that, built websites for people, sold them, and

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Speaker 2: then we needed to get traffic, so we needed to

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Speaker 2: market them. And really I never studied marketing, and I

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Speaker 2: started my you know, learning myself, which I've done obviously

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Speaker 2: throughout time, and I came from the school of sort

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Speaker 2: of direct marketing very David Ogilvy. A guy called Michael

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Speaker 2: Kylie was my mentor, taught me copywriting and really started

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Speaker 2: to understand how to build traffic at attention, bring people in,

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Speaker 2: create content, and you know, educate your customer to then

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Speaker 2: go and buy something. And and we started selling these

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Speaker 2: services right to all our customers. And I was, as

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Speaker 2: I'm saying that you can hear it, sort of the

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Speaker 2: gems of Finder and and and and it's.

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Speaker 1: Pillars were really built out of that.

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Speaker 2: They were they were natural. And I think while I

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Speaker 2: was doing that, I was just we're building all these websites,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, Wow, these companies are making so

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Speaker 2: much money. It's early Internet, you know, they're just crushing

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Speaker 2: it because it's doesn't exist right. Everyone wants to go

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Speaker 2: on the Internet and find a service. And I was

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Speaker 2: thinking to myself, why don't we go and build some

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Speaker 2: of these? And so during my spare time, we would

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Speaker 2: just put up little websites. And I did a lot

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Speaker 2: of zany experiments.

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Speaker 1: Let's put it that way.

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Speaker 2: Some of them I can talk about. Some of them

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Speaker 2: I can't.

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Speaker 1: Some of them are legal by an h some of

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Speaker 1: them I don't know. Twenty years have passed. It's fun,

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Speaker 1: it's actually the limitations as expired.

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Speaker 2: So from those experiments, we really I sort of honed

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Speaker 2: my like, I took it that next step of building

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Speaker 2: actual businesses, and I really discovered a whole series of things.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: We had a sudukus site, we had a Christmas Day

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Speaker 2: dot com, the U website, we had a Mother's Day presence.

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Speaker 1: There's a very seasonal website, not the best. They didn't

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Speaker 1: turn out to maybe not year round.

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Speaker 2: A poker site. We were shipping like huge poker tables

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Speaker 2: around Australia, which is a terrible idea because it's five

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Speaker 2: hundred dollars of shipping per table, so it's just not

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Speaker 2: a good ideas. A whole series of like face plants,

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Speaker 2: and then one of them was credit card Finder, and

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Speaker 2: that one just every month just tended to got better

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Speaker 2: and better and better, and that's something we really focused on.

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Speaker 1: At what point did you realize that that was the

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Speaker 1: one out of all of these ideas sending poker tables

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Speaker 1: around Christmas Day dot com, Mother's Day dot com? Did

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Speaker 1: you know as soon as you started credit card Finder

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Speaker 1: that it was the one that had the potential to

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Speaker 1: keep on going.

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Speaker 2: Not at all. They looked all the same, Really, they

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Speaker 2: all looked the same. Just to give you context, I

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Speaker 2: remember there was a an octagon table we had in

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Speaker 2: the agency and every idea was an a four piece

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Speaker 2: of paper written with like three dot points of why

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Speaker 2: we should do it and you know, basically explanation of

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Speaker 2: the domain name. And they were just all scattered on

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Speaker 2: the table and we literally just got like our pant

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Speaker 2: and said, okay, we'll launch this one, this one, and

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Speaker 2: we got you know, a couple of ticks on it.

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Speaker 2: Then we put it live and just experiment and see

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Speaker 2: what would happen, and some immediately did well, some didn't.

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Speaker 2: I tell you, it was any story. So I discovered

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Speaker 2: the people would lose their super and this is the

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Speaker 2: thing that still happens. You know, you have a job

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Speaker 2: when you you know and then you lose, you know,

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Speaker 2: you forget where it is, you know. So I built

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Speaker 2: this website called fine loss super dot com Are you?

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Speaker 2: And I just put up a page should a blog

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Speaker 2: it was, it was just a page and I said, hey,

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Speaker 2: send me fifty dollars to my bank account and I'll

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Speaker 2: find your super. And after as been a count number

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Speaker 2: on there and people, I woke up one morning and

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Speaker 2: I was like, you know, and I just went like,

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Speaker 2: what's the fifty dollars in here? I don't know what

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Speaker 2: that is. And then I remembered, oh, I'd put this

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Speaker 2: on this website, and all these customers had started sending

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Speaker 2: me fifty dollars to go and find their lost super.

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Speaker 2: And you know, I obviously wrote back to them and

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Speaker 2: helped them actually find their super. A bunch of them

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Speaker 2: had genuine money they could get and everyone was happy.

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Speaker 2: And I realized, like, I probably should have, you know,

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Speaker 2: checked up on that idea. But you know, that's just

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Speaker 2: a nice example of my mindset in I think you

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Speaker 2: need to do a lot of repetitions with any idea,

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Speaker 2: with any business, with any skill, you have to find

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Speaker 2: the right thing that works really well. And it's those

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Speaker 2: number of repetitions, how many times you prepared to fail,

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Speaker 2: how many times you prepared to go, repeat, repeat, repeat,

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Speaker 2: repeede and refine your craft. And that that was my mindset.

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Speaker 2: Just keep going, keep going and find it.

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Speaker 1: It's such a great image of you with all of

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Speaker 1: these ideas on this paper and just going yet, we'll

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Speaker 1: try this one. We'll try this one, We'll try this one.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that that spirit of just having a go,

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Speaker 1: of having a crack is still there now? Because you

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Speaker 1: do a lot of work with startups and trying to

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Speaker 1: help other people as well, Is there still that same

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Speaker 1: mentality around you, know what, We're just going to have

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Speaker 1: a go and see if this works, and if not,

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Speaker 1: we've got idea B, an idea, c an idea D.

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Speaker 1: Or Is it become more sanitized and refined now?

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Speaker 2: I think raw entrepreneurship is the same. I think there

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Speaker 2: are a lot more failures than there are successes, and

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Speaker 2: that's probably the natural course of evolution of any particular thing,

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Speaker 2: and startups and know that are not any particularly different.

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Speaker 2: I don't think there's been a large amount of refining.

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Speaker 2: It's not even possible, right, So you're literally trying to

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Speaker 2: calculate a whole series of uncalculable thoughts about how customer

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Speaker 2: will react, what they'll think of the brand, you know, price,

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Speaker 2: and you can test that as much as you like,

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Speaker 2: but there's a certain point where you just sort of

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Speaker 2: got to launch the button. And I'm probably a little

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Speaker 2: bit earlier in the launch button than in the test.

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Speaker 1: And to the name of your book, which is go live, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just true. Just get it out there and see

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Speaker 1: if it works.

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Speaker 2: I there's a there's a really cool cafe called Lime

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Speaker 2: Espresso's just down the road from me, and I'll shout

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Speaker 2: out to Costa here. He said. He bought the book

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Speaker 2: because you know, I get a you know, a bacon

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Speaker 2: and egg and a coffee in the morning. He bought

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Speaker 2: the book and he read it, literally said, I read

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Speaker 2: your book. I've got this line of Chili's sources I've

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Speaker 2: been looking to launch. He called up the Easter show.

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Speaker 2: Booked booked a thing. Now, this was this was about

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Speaker 2: three months ago. He showed me his production line of

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Speaker 2: chili sauces that he is now making and shipping out

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Speaker 2: the door to all these delis. Like he just he said,

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Speaker 2: and if it wasn't for you just telling me to

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Speaker 2: go live that idea that chili sauce would never have

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Speaker 2: gone out there.

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Speaker 1: How does that make you feel, knowing that that you

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Speaker 1: have had that impact on someone's career and their life.

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Speaker 2: I suppos to make a small dent in the universe.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's not it's not, I guess, I just yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think it's me giving back and me inspiring the

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Speaker 2: next generation of entrepreneurs, and hopefully in some small way.

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Speaker 2: The way I think of that is, as an entrepreneur,

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Speaker 2: you're contributing something new to humanity. You are you are,

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Speaker 2: you are on the precipice, You're on the forefront of invention.

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Speaker 2: You you add to the consciousness of what is. You

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Speaker 2: take ideas that are already out there and you turn

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Speaker 2: them into reality, and and that adds to humanity. It

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Speaker 2: drives us forward, It gives us new experiences, It continues

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Speaker 2: our existence. And I think that you know, this obviously

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Speaker 2: just is a range of chili sources. But to some extent,

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Speaker 2: where does that lead and what does that go to?

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Speaker 2: And you know, there's a whole series of serendipity I

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Speaker 2: think that will come from that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, even it just at its most practical level,

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Speaker 1: it's had an impact on Costa's life and family, and

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Speaker 1: potentially a generational impact, and so those things can flow on.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about Google, a rather

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Speaker 1: infamous incident involving Google. We're going to take a very

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Speaker 1: quick break and come back in a second. I'm speaking

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Speaker 1: with Fred Schebesta, the founder of Finder. Before the break,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned Google. Is it fair to say that you

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Speaker 1: have almost a love hate relationship with Google because you

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Speaker 1: figured out when you had credit card Finder which is

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Speaker 1: now Finder, figured out how to use Google so effectively

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Speaker 1: to maximize your SEO and really get your name and

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Speaker 1: your brand out there, to the extent that Google actually

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Speaker 1: stopped you from doing that. Take us through what happened, Well.

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Speaker 2: You go back to two thousand and seven, two thousand

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Speaker 2: and eight. SEO back then was sort of a dark science,

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Speaker 2: and largely the most practices were you figured out the algorithm,

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Speaker 2: you figured out what was needed to go and change it,

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Speaker 2: and you did those things. And you know, to be fair,

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Speaker 2: there was not a lot of transparency about what you

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Speaker 2: can and can't do. We you know, a lot of

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Speaker 2: people and pretty much everyone was doing let's say fairly

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Speaker 2: gray too darker. You know, I don't know it was

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Speaker 2: a sense of inferi and green. We've got black and white,

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Speaker 2: but maybe maybe it's not so gray. We could go

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Speaker 2: a little bit blacker than gray.

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Speaker 1: Activities.

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Speaker 2: And they were, you know, doing things like buying links

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Speaker 2: essentially on other people's websites and pointing them back to Finder.

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Speaker 2: Google back then primarily worked not from AI and not

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Speaker 2: from user testing and all the Chrome data it has today,

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Speaker 2: but from literally how many links pointed at your website.

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Speaker 2: And that was calculated by a thing called page Rank

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Speaker 2: and named after Larry Page, who invented Google, and with

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Speaker 2: so Jay Brinn and they called Patran. Basically, it was

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Speaker 2: the number of links to pointed to your site, and

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Speaker 2: it was based upon the university research papers, which cited

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Speaker 2: other research papers. And they thought, oh, I'll take that

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Speaker 2: same idea, and whoever got sited the most, they just

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Speaker 2: put up to the top of the site. And that's

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Speaker 2: what made Google so good and it did work. And

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Speaker 2: so I thought, oh, well, I'll just get the most

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Speaker 2: authoritative websites I can possibly find, and yeah, just advertise

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Speaker 2: on them and get them to link to Finder, and

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Speaker 2: the just.

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Speaker 1: For the the benefit of anybody listening, advertised just then

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Speaker 1: did have air quotation marks around us. Just then.

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Speaker 2: It was an avid, it was an advertisement, just just

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Speaker 2: was very blue link, you know. So I called up universities,

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Speaker 2: I call up governments, agencies, I called up anyone who

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Speaker 2: wanted to be sponsored, any organizations, nonprofits. And I donated

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Speaker 2: like tens of thousands of dollars to removed out to these,

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Speaker 2: you know, and and and I remember calling up one

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Speaker 2: sort of university guy and I said like, Hey, I

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Speaker 2: can see you're the marketing person of this you know,

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Speaker 2: industry of this body, you know, inside the inside the university. Hey,

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Speaker 2: what's your target? He's like, oh, I got it, you know,

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Speaker 2: five grand every quarter. I'm like, hey, how about I'll

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Speaker 2: give you five right now if you could just send

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Speaker 2: me an invoice and you can just put this link

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Speaker 2: on the website. That's all you need to do and

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Speaker 2: I'll hit your quarter for you. He's like, sure, sends

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Speaker 2: me an email next minute. I send the money links

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Speaker 2: on the site and immediately we go boom to the

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Speaker 2: top of Google and it is like overnight, and the

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Speaker 2: traffic is insane. Right, It's this Back then, there was

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Speaker 2: no as many sponsored ads. This was basically.

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Speaker 1: Call it.

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to think about a politically correct word. This

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Speaker 2: is black and white show, but I guess so's it's

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Speaker 2: money printing, right. It was literally do this activity and

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Speaker 2: like the traffic and revenue went through the roof. And

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Speaker 2: you know, we ranked number one in Australia for credit

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Speaker 2: card that as a keyword. And back then that was

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Speaker 2: a big deal because it just wasn't as much activity.

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Speaker 2: Right these days things have changed and you know it's

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Speaker 2: all sort of much more bilurry and Google didn't like

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Speaker 2: that at all. And so two weeks or three weeks later,

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Speaker 2: you know, I was super happy, woke up and the

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Speaker 2: site was penalized and sent back like twenty five pages

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Speaker 2: in Google basically the graveyard of Google where no one

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Speaker 2: goes and they know this.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so I was well off the So you

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Speaker 1: were number one and now you are not just at

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the first page. You have got to

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Speaker 1: click through twenty five pages just to find.

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Speaker 2: You correct, And that basically killed the websites trafficked by

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Speaker 2: like nine overnight.

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Speaker 1: How did that feel? I felt shocked and.

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Speaker 2: Like attacked, And you know then you get a bit angry,

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Speaker 2: like what like I was just doing everyone else is doing.

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Speaker 2: You get a bit of victimness in it, and then

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Speaker 2: I was like, all right, what are we going to do.

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Speaker 2: I immediately snapped into there must be something we can

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Speaker 2: do here, Let's get started, and I just started working

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Speaker 2: at it.

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Speaker 1: Was there ever any sense while you were at number

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Speaker 1: one that it could come to an end that hey,

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Speaker 1: this is this is almost too good to be true?

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Speaker 1: Or did this just completely come out of the blue?

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Speaker 2: When out of the blue For me, I didn't know

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Speaker 2: that was possible. I know, you're at the top of

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Speaker 2: the mountain and you're like, I have climbed out of

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Speaker 2: the primemordule soup to evolve this business, to find this

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Speaker 2: angle and immediately just get shut down.

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Speaker 1: How close did it come to killing the business altogether?

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Speaker 2: It was basically killed like it was. You know, I'd say,

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Speaker 2: if you imagined a hospital patient that just had a

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Speaker 2: car crash, you were you know, a good five percent

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Speaker 2: chance of survival.

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Speaker 1: So how did you bring it back?

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Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I did, I started just deep

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Speaker 2: diving into this problem, found out that other people had

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Speaker 2: experienced this, and I really started to understand Google even

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Speaker 2: more and went into its patents, started trying to speak

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Speaker 2: to their team, went to speak to experts, paid a

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Speaker 2: lot of people and just started digging and unwinding the

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Speaker 2: things you've done, resubmitting it to Google, and then luckily

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Speaker 2: one morning woke up and it was back, not number one,

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Speaker 2: but it was in the top ten.

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Speaker 1: The penalty had been lifted.

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Speaker 2: The penalty had been lifted, And that that moment I realized, Okay,

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Speaker 2: maybe you know you don't want to put the foot

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Speaker 2: on the accelerator that hard. Sometimes it's good like in business,

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Speaker 2: but I think just a gradual increase in speed until

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Speaker 2: you're going really fast.

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Speaker 1: I've read a lot of interviews with you, I've watched

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Speaker 1: a lot of interviews and seen a lot of what

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Speaker 1: you've said in the past, and one kind of recurring

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Speaker 1: theme is that when you're building a business, you need

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Speaker 1: to break the rules. You need to disrupt. If you're

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Speaker 1: going to go in to actually make a difference in business,

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Speaker 1: then you need to do things differently and break rules.

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Speaker 1: How do you know when to break the rules and

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Speaker 1: how do you know when to work within the rules

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Speaker 1: that are there? And perhaps this was an example of that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think every business is built like I'd say them,

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Speaker 2: they're always on the line or close to the line

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Speaker 2: or in a zone that no one has ever been

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Speaker 2: and so there are less rules. And I think that

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Speaker 2: if I was to comment about in general any countries

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Speaker 2: right now, regulation is killing businesses, like killing it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's burdensome and it's just stifling innovation.

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Speaker 1: It's brutal you work internationally. How does Australia stack up

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Speaker 1: compared to We've got operations in the US and dozens

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Speaker 1: of other countries. How does Australia stack up in terms

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Speaker 1: of the amount of red tape that is on business?

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Speaker 2: I think as much as you know, America has still

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Speaker 2: a lot of regulation and rules and stuff that you

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Speaker 2: need to follow, like particularly with the States, it's there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of litigiousness as well, So it does. I

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Speaker 2: think it's comparable in that way. But the part that's

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Speaker 2: not comparable is where it's new. Anywhere there's new initative here,

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Speaker 2: it's just pulled down, shut down letters, send as fast

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Speaker 2: as you possibly can. Obviously we experienced this with you know,

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Speaker 2: we built Finder Earn and had the same at that

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Speaker 2: issue with Asik, which we've defended twice in court.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because ASIK appealed it and the Federal Court found

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Speaker 1: once again in Finders favor.

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Speaker 2: Right, and like, how is a business supposed to innovate

402
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:30,639
Speaker 2: when a regulator is enforcing something where they are in

403
00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:34,400
Speaker 2: this case wrong, Like how's a business supposed to grow

404
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Speaker 2: when there's no clarity, Like they're going to go and

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Speaker 2: sue us, get us to spend money. They're using taxpayer

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Speaker 2: money to spend to us. We defend with our money.

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Speaker 2: And it just crushed, crushed that entire part of our

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Speaker 2: business which has not been the best. And I think

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Speaker 2: it's obviously really stifled crypto in Australia and making it

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Speaker 2: a safe place for people in Australia. Going back, I

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Speaker 2: think regulation and when to follow the rules, I don't

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Speaker 2: think you should follow the rules. Rules are written by

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Speaker 2: people who want to like there are suggestions to me,

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Speaker 2: and there are some rules that like, yes, you want

415
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Speaker 2: to like be very mindful of and be considerate of.

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Speaker 2: And it's about being tactical and going okay, yes, this

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Speaker 2: is a suggestion. And the universe rewards people who challenge

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Speaker 2: what is the status quo or the understood thing? Because

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Speaker 2: no one's looking there, And because no one's looking there,

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Speaker 2: you can go and get white space and go and win.

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Speaker 2: And that's literally where innovation happens. That's when people go

422
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 2: like the Wright brothers didn't have a pilot's license. Australian

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Speaker 2: government didn't give a fine to Burke and Wills for

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Speaker 2: going and finding new real estate, you know, but in

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Speaker 2: our case they did, you know, which that's just that attitude,

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Speaker 2: that that that mindset I think needs to change. That's

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Speaker 2: not what Australia used to be. Like Australia was a

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Speaker 2: country of opportunity, of taking chances, you know, having a

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Speaker 2: fair go, a fair go, not being pulled down. And

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Speaker 2: I think that's one of the issues, you know, I

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Speaker 2: take I take extreme issue with that in this country.

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Speaker 2: And I think America was going that way and they

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Speaker 2: were that way. And now look at the one eighty

434
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 2: they've done in crypto and look at the explosion of productivity,

435
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:35,440
Speaker 2: of wealth building, of job creation. They will become again

436
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:38,000
Speaker 2: just like they did with the Internet. They will dominate crypto.

437
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 2: They're going to do it again. And we're like it's

438
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 2: happening in real time in front of us.

439
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: Speaking to you about this. It sounds as though this

440
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 1: battle with our Sikh Overfinder Earn has really rattled you.

441
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 2: Definitely. I think, I think, I think every entrepreneur should

442
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:56,879
Speaker 2: be rattled by it in Australia, and I think it

443
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 2: has rattled them and people have just left. I know

444
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 2: most crypto entrepreneurs leave Australia most like if you want

445
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 2: to go and do something, you wouldn't do it here

446
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 2: like this. There are no laws written about crypto in Australia.

447
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 2: There is only enforcement cases. Like that's like saying, hey,

448
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 2: I think you're wrong. I'm going to go and sue

449
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 2: you just to check if you're wrong. But you're wrong

450
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 2: right now, and I'm going to go and threaten you

451
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 2: and put to put you in jail because you're unlicensed

452
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 2: and you're doing these things. When the activities we've done,

453
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 2: no one lost any money, and there are literally cases

454
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 2: of people who are getting scammed and people's money getting stolen.

455
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: Go and focus on those, you know.

456
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,200
Speaker 2: I think that that to me is I take I

457
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 2: do take issue with that, and I think the big

458
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 2: the toughest part for me is that I went spent

459
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 2: my own money on time to go and I counseled

460
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 2: the government on policy. I gave testimony in the Senate

461
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 2: about what policy. I wrote all these documents, and then

462
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 2: that was turned around in I don't think that's that's

463
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 2: not in the spirit of what giving a fair go is.

464
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:07,360
Speaker 2: That's not what Bob Hawk talked about. That's not that's

465
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:10,880
Speaker 2: not what Australia is all about. And I think it's

466
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 2: un Australian to do that.

467
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: Talk then about the opportunities within kind of new to

468
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: rain and unregulated to rain AI. Is this kind of

469
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: the next the next step? And how does that fit

470
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: in with what you were doing, with what you've built

471
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:30,480
Speaker 1: with Finder and where you could be going next. Is

472
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: this where the next kind of Fred Schevester will emerge

473
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: in Australia building something out of AI because the rules

474
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: aren't yet set in place.

475
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if I was to make a comparable

476
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 2: two thousand and one Jeff Bezos, you know, the Internet

477
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 2: bubble just burst. Amazon was still around and someone asked them, oh,

478
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 2: is this internet thing of fad? Like pretty interesting question, right,

479
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 2: we haven't had a bubble burst with AI yet. But

480
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 2: his response was the Internet is like an electric company.

481
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 2: Like electricity, it will be in everything. And I think

482
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:12,399
Speaker 2: that's the same thing. Right if you go back to

483
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 2: the initial days of electricity, like we look at this

484
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 2: and we plug stuff into walls, there were no wall sockets,

485
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 2: there were no appliances, you know, toasters. No, it was

486
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 2: like this weird thing was in your house and it

487
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 2: was for lights that it was the whole purpose. And

488
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 2: when you had early appliances used to go and literally

489
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 2: plug your appliance into your light. That's how you got

490
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 2: you know, you literally why Jerry rigged the cable in

491
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 2: and turn it on. Right. It's a pretty wild thing,

492
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 2: but you know, and that's that's it. I think AI

493
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 2: is the same thing, right, it's electric company. It's going

494
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 2: to be in everything. A AI will be in everything,

495
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 2: just like the Internet. It'll be the exact same thing.

496
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 2: A little bit of AI in this and that, you know,

497
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 2: it just corrects ads, nudges, advisors, smoothed the interface of

498
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 2: the in the experience. And I think that we're just

499
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 2: going through another cycle, another loop of of when the

500
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 2: Internet came out, and I loved, you know, I loved

501
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 2: the hitting and getting into new technologies, new things. Early

502
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 2: AI is just the same finder. Then what's next?

503
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:13,679
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it AI? Is it turbo charging what

504
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: you were doing already? What's the future? Hold an ipo?

505
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: Perhaps we like.

506
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 2: We you can't really see it, but find it is

507
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 2: already using AI. It's just it's like it's it's you know,

508
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 2: how people search on our site, how we do things internally,

509
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 2: how we provide the answers that people want. There's a

510
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 2: whole series of internal processes, external process to customers, and

511
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 2: I think that'll keep getting bigger and bigger and smoothing

512
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 2: out and automating processes for customers. I think is to

513
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 2: me is where there is a real beauty in an edge,

514
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 2: and we will be obviously rolling that and revealing that

515
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 2: as as we finished these products. We've been rolling like

516
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff out internally again normally really see it,

517
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,199
Speaker 2: but it's it's sort of the beginning points of what

518
00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 2: will come. I think the next phase of Finder is

519
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 2: one of efficiency, so really making it very efficient for

520
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 2: our customers and internally. I think, you know, one of

521
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 2: the biggest challenges around economies and humanity has been productivity.

522
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,200
Speaker 2: Like we just haven't had a big bump in productivity. AI,

523
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 2: I think is one of those complete unlocks. If you

524
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 2: if you're writing an email, you know, you're writing a document,

525
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:28,399
Speaker 2: researching something, you know, a whole series of activities that

526
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 2: now can be done in a maybe a fiftieth of

527
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 2: the time. You're going to spend more time creating. You're

528
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 2: going to spend more time with like deeper thoughts, You're

529
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 2: going to spend more time actually moving the needle of

530
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 2: what is productive. So it's instead of just the mish mash,

531
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 2: you're actually going to move humanity forward. That's what I

532
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 2: think AI will unlock.

533
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: It's a time shift, Fred, thanks for speaking to one

534
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: on one today.

535
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 2: Thanks very much.

536
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: That was Fred schebesta entrepreneur and co founder of Finder.

537
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson and this is one on one by

538
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: Fear and Great