TechMates

Wayne Brown: blunt engineer, Auckland mayor, and the man on a mission to make NZ the South Pacific's startup capital.
In this episode of TechMates, Hendrik and Mark sit down with Wayne Brown, Mayor of Auckland — and he's not your typical politician. A trained engineer who put half a million of his own money into a mayoral campaign, won by a landslide, and then won again even bigger, Brown has spent four years doing something almost unheard of in politics: actually fixing things. From stepping in to restore Auckland's power after a catastrophic grid failure in 1998, to overhauling the city's flood preparedness after a storm that caught everyone off guard, his approach is the same every time — go back to first principles, find the engineers, ignore the lawyers.
But this conversation is really about what's coming next. Brown is halfway through an audacious campaign — 100 days, 100 startup T-shirts, 100 short videos — designed to put Auckland's startup ecosystem on the global map ahead of Auckland Startup Week. He's seen the full bell curve up close: the dogs, the future billionaires, and everything in between. His view is simple: Auckland already has the next 25 Halters and Rocket Labs hiding in plain sight. The world just hasn't noticed yet — mostly because New Zealand keeps ending up cut off the bottom of flat world maps.His pitch to founders is as unfiltered as everything else he says: Auckland is safe, cheap, well-connected to Asia, and rich enough to enjoy once you've made it. Silicon Valley is a shithole. Wellington is the worst thing about Auckland.
And plastic in the ocean is a bigger threat to humanity than climate change. Whether you agree with him or not, you won't forget what he said.
🏙️ Auckland as a Startup Hub: Why Brown believes Auckland is quietly home to the next generation of global breakout companies — and what it's missing to make that undeniable.
👕 100 Days of Startups: The story behind the T-shirt campaign — what he's seen, what surprised him, and which ones he'd actually put his own money into.
🌏 Auckland's Geographic Edge: Why the shortest route between Asia and South America runs through Auckland — and why the world is only just waking up to it.
🔗 Learn more about NZVC: https://www.nzvc.co.nz
Mark Pavlyukovskyy — https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlyukovskyy/
Hendrik Remigereau — https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendrik-remigereau-09a03067/
Timestamps:
00:00 — The 100 T-Shirt Startup Campaign
02:18 — Fixing Auckland's Power Grid in 14 Days
03:20 — Why Lawyers on Boards Kill Cities
06:25 — The Night of the Flood
07:57 — Media Attacks & Taking the Long View
11:00 — Engineers vs. Politicians
11:17 — Why Brown Ran for Mayor
13:18 — The 100 Days of Startups Explained
14:12 — Auckland's Innovation Gap
17:12 — Who Picks the T-Shirt Each Morning?
19:37 — Plastic Is More Dangerous Than Climate Change
22:27 — The China Trade Mission
23:50 — Auckland as the South Pacific Startup Capital
25:26 — The Value Prop for Early-Stage Founders
26:52 — Wellington Is Auckland's Biggest Problem
29:32 — Auckland's Hidden Geographic Superpower
30:11 — What Auckland Can Be World-Class At
32:02 — China, America & NZ's Foreign Policy
34:43 — The Bell Curve of 100 Startups
36:47 — AI: China Builds Things, America Makes Trivia
38:43 — Advice for a 24-Year-Old Founder
40:39 — The Pitch for Auckland Startup Week
#TechMates, #WayneBrown, #Auckland, #AucklandStartupWeek, #NewZealand, #StartupHub, #NZTech, #Entrepreneurship, #NZVC, #Founders, #StartupEcosystem, #DeepTech, #RocketLab, #Halter, #NZStartups, #Innovation, #Mayor, #SiliconValley, #AsiaPacific, #SeaCleaners, #NZBusiness, #TechWeek, #StartupAdvice, #CityOfSails, #GlobalStartups

Four founders, one uncomfortable question: what happens to learning — in school, university, and work — once AI can teach better than most humans?
This episode of TechMates brings together four conversations around a single theme: technology is quietly rewriting what it means to learn, at every stage of life. It opens with Arash Tayebi of Kara Technologies, whose personal hearing loss led him to build AI avatars that translate content into sign language in real time — closing an accessibility gap that's existed for decades.
From there, the episode widens out. Penelope Barton of Crimson Global Academy has already built her own son a personalized AI tutor at home, and predicts AI-driven teachers are only three to five years from the mainstream classroom. Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education takes the idea further up the ladder, imagining AI avatars standing in for Ivy League professors — and shares what OpenAI's chief economist told him personally about AI and the future of jobs. Finn Puklowski of Fluency Academy closes the loop by bringing it into the workplace: he built an internal AI curriculum for his entire company, warning that whole industries risk their own "rust belt moment" if they don't adapt.
Together, these conversations sketch a picture of education not as a single institution, but as something that now follows you from childhood through your career — reshaped, at every step, by AI.
🧏 How AI avatars are giving deaf communities real-time access to education and content
🤖 Why one founder believes AI-driven teachers are only 3–5 years away
🎓 What it would mean for AI avatars to replace elite university professors
💼 Inside one company's internal AI curriculum — 165 projects, 40 shipped to production
📉 The "rust belt" warning for entire industries that ignore AI in the workplace
🔮 What OpenAI's chief economist said about AI and the future of jobs
👨‍👩‍👦 Building a personalized AI tutor for your own child — today, not someday
🎧 Listen On:
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gQnb_WbB
Spotify: https://bit.ly/4earYWc
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/42KZ2x1
Connect with the Guests:
Arash Tayebi (Kara Technologies) — Kara Technologies: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kara-technologies-ltd | Website: https://kara.tech
Pene Barton (Crimson Global Academy) — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/penelopebarton/ | Website: https://www.crimsonglobalacademy.school
Jamie Beaton (Crimson Education) — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiebeaton/ | Website: https://www.crimsoneducation.org
Finn Puklowski (Fluency Academy) — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-puklowski/ | Website: https://www.fluencyacademy.io
🔗 Learn more about NZVC: https://www.nzvc.co.nz
Mark Pavlyukovskyy — https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlyukovskyy/
Hendrik Remigereau — https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendrik-remigereau-09a03067/
Timestamps:
00:00 — Introduction
0:58 — Arash Tayebi (Kara Technologies): AI avatars for sign language accessibility
2:36 — Why this problem is invisible to most people
4:21 — Demo: narrating a children's book in sign language
6:05 — Pene Barton (Crimson Global Academy): the case for a personal AI tutor
7:25 — Does AI remove the need for school?
8:19 — Why AI-driven teachers are 3–5 years away
10:14 — Jamie Beaton (Crimson Education): could AI replace elite professors?
12:03 — Will AI wipe out white collar jobs?
13:24 — Finn Puklowski (Fluency Academy): building an AI curriculum at work
14:57 — 165 projects, 40 shipped to production
15:42 — The "Rust Belt" warning for companies ignoring AI
#TechMates, #ArashTayebi, #PeneBarton, #JamieBeaton, #FinnPuklowski, #KaraTechnologies, #CrimsonEducation, #CrimsonGlobalAcademy, #FluencyAcademy, #EdTech, #FutureOfLearning, #AIinEducation, #AITeachers, #Accessibility, #SignLanguage, #NZVC, #KiwiFounders, #StartupPodcast, #AIandJobs, #FutureOfWork, #OnlineSchool, #Entrepreneurship, #DeepTech, #Innovation

Zenno's CEO just made history — first superconductor ever run in space. And he thinks a war in orbit is now "highly likely." 🧲🚀
Max Arshavsky is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zenno Astronautics, the company building the world's first superconducting technology platform for space. Since launching from New Zealand in 2018, Zenno has gone from a $100K university challenge win to landing government contracts with Germany's SPRINT program and Japan's Mitsubishi Electric, and just this year became the first company in history to successfully operate a superconducting product in orbit. Max joins Hendrik and Mark to catch up a year after their first conversation — and a lot has changed.
This episode dives deep into the physics and geopolitics of the new space race: why energy is the resource that will define who dominates space, why Max believes a war in space is now "highly likely," and why rocketry — once the hardest problem in the industry — is now the easy part. Max breaks down the economics of intercepting missiles from orbit, why data centers might really be headed to space within years, and how his own company's magnets could one day replace rockets entirely with mass drivers on the Moon.Along the way, Max explains why he relocated Zenno's US presence to Los Angeles's "entrepreneur paradise" near SpaceX and Impulse Space, why he thinks self-replicating robots — not humans — will colonize Mars, and why he's convinced the Moon will belong to somebody sooner than most people think. It's a conversation about magnets, geopolitics, and what it actually takes to build hardware for a place with no room for failure.
🧲 The world's first superconductor in space — how Zenno's Z01 SuperTorquer works and why it could end satellites' dependence on fuel
🚀 Why Max believes rocketry is a solved problem and the real challenge now is what happens once you're in orbit
⚔️ The blunt economics of space warfare — why cheap, high-volume interceptors beat expensive one-shot systems
🌍 Why Max moved Zenno's US operations to Los Angeles, and what makes it the "epicenter" of the new space economy
🔋 The case for data centers and energy infrastructure in space — and how close we really are
🌕 Mass drivers, magnetic launch systems, and a future where the Moon replaces rockets for shipping cargo to Earth
🤖 Why Max thinks self-replicating machines, not humans, will be the ones to colonize Mars
🎧 Listen On:
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gQnb_WbB
Spotify: https://bit.ly/4earYWc
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/42KZ2x1
Connect with the Guest:
Max Arshavsky
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-arshavsky/
Zenno Astronautics
Website: https://www.zenno.space
🔗 Learn more about NZVC: https://www.nzvc.co.nz
Mark Pavlyukovskyy — https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlyukovskyy/
Hendrik Remigereau — https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendrik-remigereau-09a03067/
Timestamps:
00:00 — Calling from LA
01:09 — Why LA is deep tech's epicenter
02:05 — SpaceX's IPO03:33 — Space is only going up
04:41 — Data centers in space
07:13 — Zenno: space superconductors
08:35 — German & Japan contracts
10:56 — America's 10x orbit push
12:13 — Is Rocket Lab overvalued?
15:14 — Star Wars and lasers
17:44 — What starts a space war
20:21 — Cheap interceptors win
26:27 — Mass drivers explained
30:17 — How Zenno builds products
33:33 — AI speeds up the algorithms
36:08 — Self-replicating machines
38:57 — Why Max moved to LA
41:20 — National security drives space race
44:00 — Who owns the Moon?
48:13 — Books that inspired Max
49:44 — Rapid fire round
#TechMates, #MaxArshavsky, #ZennoAstronautics, #SpaceTech, #Superconductors, #SpaceRace, #DeepTech, #Aerospace, #SatelliteTechnology, #SpaceX, #RocketLab, #NewZealandTech, #StartupFounder, #SpaceEconomy, #DefenseTech, #SpaceInnovation, #FutureOfSpace, #TechFounders, #VentureCapital, #NZVC, #SpaceIndustry, #Engineering, #Podcast, #TechPodcast, #SpaceExploration, #Innovation

Stefan Powell scaled a New Zealand space company to eight-figure revenue — quietly dominating 82% of a satellite propulsion market, flying a space plane 64 times, and closing a $25M Series B — all before most of the world even knew Dawn Aerospace existed.
In this episode of TechMates, Hendrik and Mark sit back down with Stefan Powell, CEO and co-founder of Dawn Aerospace — and this time, the conversation hits different. NZVC has officially joined Dawn's $25M Series B as investors, making this more than just a podcast catch-up: it's a front-row seat into a company they now have skin in the game on. Dawn builds both the propulsion systems powering hundreds of satellites in orbit and Aurora, a space plane already breaking aircraft performance records — and after a year of massive momentum, there's a lot to unpack.
Dawn has grown to over 200 propulsion systems on 50 satellites, with 52 of 63 nitrous bipropellant systems in orbit belonging to Dawn. The next unlock: in-space refueling by 2028, with defense customers already lined up. Stefan explains why refuelable satellites are becoming a non-negotiable strategic capability — and how Dawn's bottom-up approach was the only credible path to getting there.
Most striking is the business underneath the rockets. Dawn hit cash flow positive before its Series B — generating more real revenue than VC funding across its entire life. Too much capital keeps companies on bad ideas for too long, Stefan argues, pointing to Relativity Space as a cautionary tale.
🛰️ In-Space Refueling by 2028: How Dawn solved the chicken-and-egg problem every other refueling startup got wrong.
✈️ Aurora Space Plane: 64 flights in, already the highest-flying and fastest aircraft ever built off a runway — at $50K per flight.💰 More Revenue Than VC Ever Raised: How Dawn reached cash flow positive before its Series B and why Stefan wants to keep it that way.
🌍 Europe's $35B Space Awakening: Why NATO allies are urgently building sovereign space capabilities — and Dawn is already supplying them.
🚀 SpaceX IPO: What the largest IPO in history means for the rest of the space industry and how it affects Dawn's trajectory.
Stefan Powell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spowell111/
Dawn Aerospace Website: https://www.dawn.aero
https://www.nzvc.co.nz
Mark Pavlyukovskyy — https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlyukovskyy/
Hendrik Remigereau — https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendrik-remigereau-09a03067/
Timestamps:
00:00 — Building Dawn while the world wasn't watching: the update from a year later
04:11 — Aurora finds product-market fit it never set out to find
04:46 — The $25M Series B: what it unlocks and why now
05:11 — 52 of 63 nitrous systems in orbit are Dawn's — market domination explained08:11 — In-space refueling: targeting 2028 and why defense is the first customer
10:19 — The satellite arms race: bodyguard satellites, adversary maneuvers & deterrence
11:04 — Solving the chicken-and-egg problem of refueling infrastructure
14:56 — Why other thruster companies never made it to propulsion systems
17:49 — Aurora's 64 flights and the upgrade to 100km altitude
21:45 — "Rocket performance, fleet economics" — why that changes everything
22:26 — How Aurora replaces a $10M missile test with a $50K flight
25:45 — DARTY mission: helping the New Zealand Navy train for missile warfare
28:45 — Aurora vs. hypersonic threats and the limits of missile defense
30:05 — The Oklahoma Spaceport deal and 100 flights a year from Infinity One
32:09 — SpaceX IPO: what the largest IPO in history means for the space industry
33:34 — What SpaceX gets wrong (and the XAI merger debate)
36:56 — Why Europe is spending $35B on space — and why Starlink dependency is a risk
40:18 — Will Dawn ever be bigger than SpaceX? Stefan's honest answer
41:30 — Elon, Peter Beck, and what great space CEOs have in common
42:45 — More customer revenue than VC raised: why Stefan wants to keep it that way

What do you do when a foreign missile cruiser does a "hot lap" around your country? You build the manufacturing tech and deploy the VC capital needed to turn your nation into an unattackable "porcupine."
In this episode of TechMates, we dive deep into the sobering reality of national security and the tech revolution rushing to protect our future. We sit down with three heavyweights tackling defense from completely different angles: Vu Tran (Co-founder of Black Sky Industries), David Moodie (Founder of Foundry Lab), and James Pinner (Chief Investment Officer of NZGCP).
This conversation peels back the curtain on why peaceful nations must urgently wake up. Vu Tran reveals the terrifying reality of a foreign missile cruiser circling Australia and why the "porcupine strategy" is the ultimate deterrent. David Moodie breaks down how America lost its manufacturing teeth and how his microwave-casting technology is bringing sovereign capability back home to deter global conflict. Finally, James Pinner addresses how massive government-backed VC funds are adapting their strict policies to support dual-use and defense technologies in a chaotic new world order. If you want to know where the future of global security and deep tech is heading, this is a must-listen.
🦔 The Porcupine Strategy: Why deterrence—not offense—is the key to surviving the next era of geopolitical tension.
🚢 A Wake-Up Call: Vu details the chilling moment a foreign missile cruiser carried more guided weapons off the coast than the entire local army possessed.
🏭 Rebuilding the War Machine: How David's tech is solving the critical skill shortage in Western manufacturing to ensure sovereign capability.
💥 Drones vs. Goliaths: James discusses how cheap, disruptive technology is wiping out multi-million dollar military assets.
💸 Shifting VC Mandates: Why government funds and institutional investors are rapidly rewriting their rules to back dual-use defense startups.
🔥Microwave Metal: The wild origin story of a founder building a massive defense-applicable tech company starting with a household microwave.
Connect with the Guests:
Vu Tran (Black Sky Industries): https://www.linkedin.com/in/vutranau/
David Moodie (Foundry Lab): https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-moodie-b7b92ab/
James Pinner (NZGCP): https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-pinner/
🔗Learn more about NZVC:
Website: https://www.nzvc.co.nz
Mark Pavlyukovskyy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlyukovskyy/
Hendrik Remigereau - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendrik-remigereau-09a03067/
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
00:43 - Vu Tran: The "Porcupine Strategy" and national defense
01:47 - The terrifying reality of the "hot lap" missile cruiser
05:11 - David Moodie: The decline of Western sovereign manufacturing
06:17 - How casting metal in a microwave is acting as a global deterrent
11:40 - James Pinner: How cheap tech is disrupting global warfare
12:22 - Why massive VC funds are shifting policies to support dual-use tech
If you enjoyed this inside look at the future of national security and deep tech, hit the Like button, drop a Comment letting us know your thoughts on the new era of defense tech, and Subscribe to TechMates for more masterclasses with world-class founders!
#defenseforce, #startups, #DeepTech, #NationalSecurity, #manufacturing, #NewZealand, #Australia, #entrepreneurship, #FoundryLab, #BlackSkyIndustries, #VC, #venturecapital, #geopolitics, #innovation, #SaaS, #techpodcast, #TechMates, #NZVC, #drones, #deterrence