The Mastering Podcast

Mastering the Modern World: Risk, Resilience, and Startups with Dr. Vu Tran & Gopi Sara

• The Mastering Team • Season 2 • Episode 7

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A family fleeing into the night with gold sewn into clothing is not just a dramatic story; it is a masterclass in conviction. This week, our hosts Magnus Olson and Don Sanka Small sit down with Dr Vu Tran and Gopi Sara to unpack how migrant and refugee journeys shape a builder’s mindset and why the real edge is not “predicting the future” but acting on what is right in front of you. If you care about Australian entrepreneurship, startup culture, leadership, and building resilient teams, this conversation gets straight to the bone.

We dig into selection bias and risk, the difference between having a view and putting chips on the table, and the daily discipline of execution. Along the way, we talk about pressure-creating solutions, how early wins build self-belief, and why marginal improvements are often a trap when you could be aiming for compounding outcomes. There is also a surprisingly practical detour into a Snoo baby-cradle rental side hustle that turns into a bigger lesson about time, scale, and playing big.

The heart of the episode is values and relationships. We get honest about autonomy, flexibility, purpose, mental health, and learning to stop sweating the small stuff so you can focus on the macro problems that actually matter. We also explore why working with friends can be a superpower in the early stages: trust speeds everything up, reduces unknowns, and helps build the kind of culture you still want around the campfire years later.

If you got something from this chat, subscribe, share it with a mate, and leave us a review. What value or rule are you using to choose the people you build with?

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A Story Of Risk And Drive

Gopi

I'm building the corporate Australia that I always crave for.

Vu

I'd say the biggest gamble I can think of is my grandma who's now passed away, who took her 15-year-old son and 16-year-old grandson, sewed gold into their clothes and put them on the boat in the middle of the night and said, go because anywhere is better than here. I always thought, you know, for a big chunk of my life, at least as a teenager turning into an adult, I thought, you know what, I've got to I've got to make the best of the opportunities my parents gave me.

Gopi

So my report card was always this goopy can do great things in life if you just applied himself. I think the big thing is for no ego. I think just being able to leave the ego at the door and kind of walk in and take the idea for the face value as it is, giving people the room to be themselves.

Vu

And it wasn't until a little bit later that I actually understood as like, actually, the thing that my parents care about is me being happy.

Magnus

Welcome

Meet The Builders Behind The Talk

Magnus

to another exciting episode of the Mastering Podcast. I'm your host, Magnus Olsen, and joining me today is again my favourite co-host, Don the Powerhouse Sanka. How are you, mate?

Don

Good, mate. Good to be off.

Magnus

All right, today we're joined by two men who just don't talk about the future. They're building it. Dr. Vu Tran is a doctor, founder, entrepreneur, and business leader operating at the intersection of medicine, technology and AI. From healthcare innovation to national defence and data. Vu is focused on one thing: helping Australia think bigger and move faster in a world that's changing at speed. Gopisara, he's an entrepreneur forged through the immigrant journey. He's considered an expert in startups and heavily involved in high-stakes business growth. He understands risk, resilience, and what it takes to build something from nothing in a competitive space. Together, they bringed lived experience across health, technology, enterprise, and the future of work. This will be a conversation of what it truly means to master the modern world. Welcome, boys. Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Gopi

Love the intro.

Vu

Man, that intro sounds like we're about to get in the ring and go for a fight, right? Do you have to add in our weight and height as part of that as well?

Magnus

Because there's not much missing. Ready to rumble. We'll leave that to the uh to the editor.

Don

Mate, I I've got to say you actually underdid that because I've known these guys for years. And I when we were uh putting this thing together, I just wanted to think, what are they masters of? And Answer was like, I can't pinpoint, but one thing that I came to is there's a lot of people who call themselves futurists.

Magnus

Can I just add to that? Because I reckon these blanks are the Australian version of the PayPal Mafia. What do you think about that?

Don

We're pretty close. Pretty close. Once you start hearing more about the go on story and the whole journey, I I think we're pretty close on that one. So let's

Execution Over Future Forecasting

Don

dive in.

Gopi

No, it's very kind. I think for me, it's like definitely not a futurist. Um, we've we talk about this a lot over the years, which is you see the stepping stones, and I think you just follow the stepping stones, and sometimes it leads to a place where you always know pro progress you push forward. So it's always gonna lead you to a better place. But there are other people out there who are predicting what the future is gonna look like. And um, you know, that's definitely not me.

Vu

Definitely not me either. Um, for me, actually, the principle is I don't know what the future's gonna look like. I don't have a crystal ball. If I did have a crystal ball, I wouldn't be sitting here with you guys, right? I would have had the lotto tickets from last night or something like that. So I appreciate the introduction, but I think, you know, my two cents is if we think too far ahead, we don't think about the present. And a lot of the time that's what we miss. You know, if if we we spoke about tangents before this kicked off, the tangent I'll bring back to is that mindfulness is something that's really, really important. But if you zoom right out, looking at that in terms of going, a lot of people think it's too far ahead or too far back, they don't think about what's in front of them. And I think one thing that we're really good at as entrepreneurs is dealing with what's in front of us. Because you can think about strategy all you want, but execution's a big part of it. So I know you're talking about being a futurist and all these things, which is great, but I think the trick that a lot of us miss is like dealing with what's in front of us. That's a really big part of it. And I think that's why Gopi and I get along really well.

Gopi

Yeah.

Vu

Because it's around just executing, right?

Gopi

And it's also like the time and the place, right? We do take time to sometimes have like an hour and a half conversation and where we just, you know, bounce around where the future is, where the trend is, and things like that. But that's definitely like, you know, once a month, once a quarter kind of thing, not every single day. Every single day or it's just solving the problem at hand.

Don

Anyone can predict the future, right? But to action on an idea and make it work, and that's I disagree, but who can predict the future?

Magnus

No, this is a good one. I think anyone can predict.

Gopi

Yeah, I think I think Don's point's pretty good, which is like I think anyone can have a view on the future. Well, I think that's a better definition of and then to but actually put chips on the table and to have a bet on it, which you know involves sweat, time, you know, blood, energy, etc. Uh, yeah, that that definitely does test you because you if it doesn't play out, you know, yeah, you kind of walk away empty-handed.

Do Immigrants Become Entrepreneurs

Magnus

Let's kick off. My first question is do immigrants make better entrepreneurs?

Gopi

I'll let Vu take this one. He's got a really good, he's got a really good view on this uh thing.

Vu

Oh look, I I don't I'm not gonna say immigrants make better entrepreneurs, but I'll talk about the selection bias that exists with immigrants, right? So I'm the child of Vietnamese immigrants. I was born here 10 years after my parents arrived in Australia, so incredibly privileged life compared to my siblings who are 10, 12, and 14 years older than me. So they came across on a boat with mum and dad as an example and fled Vietnam. My dad used to always tell me that the Steve Jobs of his generation fled Vietnam after the war. Because the selection bias that exists for migrants, in particular refugees, just think about it, the ones that are willing to take a risk, take a bet, to gamble, to jump on a boat like my parents did with their three kids under the age of five, go to God knows where to escape God knows what, right? And so if you think about it, and where I see this is I I think about my my dad compared to my uncle who stayed in Vietnam. Okay, yeah, yeah. Right? Two brothers, not that far in difference in age. My my uncle who stayed in Vietnam, worked in the same job his entire life. My dad arrived in Australia, started a business, started a sewing factory, started a convenience store, all these different sorts of things, right? And I think that bias, that selection bias that occurs a lot with migrants and with immigrants is that sort of that risk-taking profile. I wouldn't say they're gamblers, but I'd say the biggest gambler I can think of is my grandma who's now passed away, who took her 15-year-old son and 16-year-old grandson, sewed gold into their clothes and put them on the boat in the middle of the night and said, go because anywhere is better than here. Right. That's the story that I grew up with as a kid. Because they were the first ones to leave Vietnam before the rest of my family fled. And I think about it going, man, grandma was a real hustler. She was the one who was sitting there going, I want to be able to, she's taking a calculated risk, right? She's weighing out the pros and cons. But as Gopi said earlier, when we were talking about this, like it's one to be able to have a view on the future, it's another one to then act on it and have conviction behind that. So, you know, in a nutshell, when I think about sort of migrants and that propensity that they have towards being entrepreneurs, the selection bias is the migrant who has come to Australia, say for example, as a refugee, is already probably a risk taker by nature. And if I think about my childhood growing up as a kid, I I people will go, Did you have tiger parents, right? Like, you know, the your typical Asian parent who kind of wants you to be a straight age student and all that stuff. My parents did not know a single grade that I had throughout all of primary school and high school. No, but not a single grade.

Magnus

They did not look at it. Speaking of those grades, what was something, what was a typical comment that was written on your report cards by your teachers growing up?

Vu

I don't know, gone from I don't know. It was it would it would have so honestly it would have just been that I was a I was probably a very combative kid growing up, but I always got great grades, right? So I do remember my grade five teacher coming up and saying, Hey, are you okay with your report card? I do remember that distinctly, right? Miss Mrs. Dingle, she was very, very lovely, but I do remember that was when I used to duke it out with her on a whole bunch of different things. But I got you know, I got good grades and and had great teachers. But going back to it, my parents, I always thought, you know, for a big chunk of my life, at least as a teenager turning into an adult, I thought, you know what, I've gotta, I've gotta make the best of the opportunities my parents gave me. And it wasn't until a little bit later that I actually understood as like, actually, the thing that my parents care about is me being happy. Because being alive, having a roof over my head and being fed was like the gold medal for them. Anything beyond that was cream, right? So I don't know, I'm coming back to it and I'd go, I wouldn't say migrants make better entrepreneurs. I don't think that's fair, right? I think it's saying that there's a selection bias there where migrants and those who are who take risks are more likely to have a greater propensity to be entrepreneurs. And I grew up in a household where it was abnormal for all the aunties and uncles to own a business, a bakery, a restaurant, a convenience store, right? So for me growing up as a kid, you know, when I went to Andrew, who I started Go One with and said, Hey, let's register an ABN and uh start selling websites in grade 11 and 12 when everyone else got a job at Woolies and Coles. That wasn't abnormal. I look back on it now and I go, that's abnormal.

Don

Yeah.

Vu

But back then that was just super, super normal. So it's a long-winded answer to say, I don't think that there is they're better. Migrants are better. I think there's just a selection bias in terms of the type of people who migrate in

Refugee Pressure And Early Hustles

Vu

the first place.

Gopi

And this is something we've um talked about a lot in the sense that like I haven't formed a view on this answer, this question, right? Because my background is I came to Australia as a refugee. You know, I was the and I didn't make the decision. Mum and dad did, right? How old were you when you came? Uh 11. So mum and dad, you know, um, we're Sri Lankans, never been in Sri Lanka, always kind of was around other places. Um war was going at the time, and they wanted a better future for my sister and I. So they decided to come to Australia. My dad got separated from us while we were coming here. So he was stuck in Singapore for almost 12 years. So last time I saw my dad was 11, and I saw him again when I was 22. Um, but my parents, you know, came here. Um, and you know, we talk about this thing a lot, which is around when you have generations, you have one generation that's a farmer, next generation is a worker, and the next generation's a poet. You have to decide which generation are you? And um, I feel unfortunate to be the poet generation because of the sacrifices my parents made. Um, that I don't think that drove me to become an entrepreneur. Um, I think it was just that, I don't think it kind of instilled the risk taking. It was just more that maybe the people around me, the environment, seeing my cousins do a bunch of things, et cetera, it kind of made me want to go. I wanted that. Or it could be that I came through corporate Australia and I just hated corporate Australia so much. It could literally be that I just went and saw an environment that I was like, I can't work in that place anymore. I've got to go and build my own environment. And um, you know, it comes through that. But um, yeah, it is definitely a case of like um it's really hard to pinpoint the characteristics.

Don

Can I rephrase that in a in a different way? But by the way, uh interesting. Um, Gopi and I both came from Sri Lanka. I migrated under different circumstances, and we were probably on the opposite side of that wall. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, but yeah. And you know, we all migrated at some point, or the result of migration and under different different circumstances, right? Do you think that as migrants, because of the circumstances and the way we have to face challenges, we become harder workers or do we put in more? Do we push through?

Magnus

I'll just make I liked your when you're talking about that you came over on a boat, because there's that saying that we've all heard that if you want to succeed in something, you've got to burn the boats. And I think a little bit of that analogy can play true, that your parents have come here, they've they've come with absolutely nothing. They've got no choice but to make this work. There's no turning back. There's no turning back.

Gopi

And I think I think that's why like um being in that situation. So coming here as a refugee, no, had no money growing up, like, you know, because we were refugees as well, we couldn't work and things like that. So we had to find ways to, you know, have money because dad was stuck overseas. So we still, my sister and I started a tutoring business when we were like 15 years old. And so we used to tutor kids in the area and stuff like that. Kids found out, and before we know it, Saturday and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we were just back-to-back tutoring for like 12 hours a day. And that kind of created like the income for us to kind of survive. And so sometimes pressure creates an environment where you find a solution. But then I think it's really interesting is when you come later in life and you have the money and things like that, and then you go to take the punishment of becoming a business owner, of founding something, that speaks a quite different. And I think what bridges the gap is if you're early on and if you're lucky enough to find a little bit of success, it becomes addictive. And then all of a sudden, because I was a C average student at school, right? I I was smart, but I never applied myself. And my so my report card was always is Gopi can do great things in life if you just applied himself. Um, and so I like it from an OP ranking perspective. I think I got like OP7, which is like, you know, top 20%, but like definitely not like OP1 or OP2 that you know most uh Sri Lankan or you know Asian kids kind of get. When I went into university, my first semester, I got straight HDs. And I just went, whoa. And then my whole uni degree came became about protecting the record. It was like I would never let anything get in the way of, and so sometimes there's a little bit of luck involved where your knowledge, your intelligence, your capability, the exam in front of you, the opportunity in front of you just collide. And then as soon as you feel that, oh, this is this is on, then I reckon since that was 17, since 17 to now, it's all been about like protecting that record, building on that excellence, etc.

Vu

I I think that's such a really good point because like you know, what I what I take away from what you're saying, there is also that little bit of self-belief as well. Of going, not only, you know, people will say, Can I do it? Okay, now that I've done it, it's like, okay, what more can I do? What more can I do? Or what other opportunities exist there? Which is so powerful because I think I you know, as I said, I was I was very lucky in that I met Andrew, who's our co-founder at OneMRI very early on in high school. We're good mates from high school. We did all every subject together bar one. I did I did uh biology, he did economics. So he went on to become an economist, I went on to become a doctor, right? That was the only difference between us. And what was really interesting is if I think back on it, it was this sort of being fortunate enough to meet other people like Gopi, like Andrew, who kind of view things as an opportunity rather than a liability. It's not what can I lose, but like what can I gain and what does that look like as well. And that sort of upside mind so sorry, upside sort of mindset is something that also I don't think is very common. Because you do meet a lot of people in different circumstances where they'll sit there and and and I see it all the time as a doctor, right? When I think about my other um uh friends who I went through medical school with, right? And a lot of them now have the sunk cost fallacy of having spent 15, 20 years of training, right? This is post, you know, one of my friends, she's a neurosurgeon, so literally a brain surgeon, and she's finishing her training this year. We graduated uni in 2011. So she's done 15 years of extra training on top of her five-year medical degree, so 20 years of study to become a neurosurgeon, right? So for her to sort of give up her training in inverted commas to go and start something new, I I wouldn't do that if I've done 20 years. Like it's it's really, really hard. But I do want to touch on something, Joey, that you know, and and I and I hope you don't mind me asking, well, getting

The Snoo Side Hustle Reality Check

Vu

you to share this. But I remember when you were about to have your second child.

Gopi

Yeah, yeah.

Vu

And I was like, dude, get a snoo. I don't know if you guys don't know what snoo is, but get a snoo. It is it is the bomb, right?

Magnus

Share what is a snoo.

Vu

So a a snoo is like a a cradle that you can tuck your newborn baby into, right? And using an algorithm, it'll work out the type of rocking that it needs to get your child to sleep. So as a parent, you're used to picking up your kid and you know exactly how to pat them and rock them to get to the sleep. Well, this you strap your kid into and it'll keep adjusting the white noise and the movement to work out what your kid likes. And then once it does that, it'll get used to it, and then it'll put your child to sleep. And it's amazing, right? So Gobi was about to have his second child, and I said, dude, I'll give you some advice because I had my second child. You should get what's called a snoo. And so what Gobi said to me is, Oh yeah, I know what a snoo is. Do you want to explain?

Gopi

Yeah. So when we had our first child, we bought a snoo. And then um, from time to time they go on for sale. And so it was like, uh, it was around Black Friday you can get like 30% off. I bought a ton of them.

Vu

And then you just turned to me and he said, like, I've got like 30 snooze. And I was like, wait, what?

Gopi

And you said, Yeah, so we used to run a website called like rentasnoo.com.au and it's so it's like you can't buy sleep, but you can rent a snoo. And you just rent these out for like 50 bucks a week, they pay back within three or four months. And it was it, you know, it was one of those things, you know, I learned a lot from this experience. I mean, I've I've always been hustling. So I've, you know, from the age of 15, you know, 14, 15, when we started that tutoring business, always, you know, running businesses, doing things, et cetera. And what's really interesting being here today, you know, going through all that journey is um, you know, having the hustle mindset's good, but having the mindset to play big is even better. So the time, like I remember so running the snooze business, it was quite good. And um, I got busy with work. So my wife, I was like, hey, can you just like sort this business out? And like it was making like maybe a grand and a half, two grand a week. And my wife was like, Yep, I'll take it over and stuff. And one day I came back and there was like six or seven snooze lying around. I was like, what's going on? Like my utilization was like 95%, right? She's like, dude, I could just go work for a day and pay you $2,000. Like, I don't need to like handle all these people and stuff. And then it kind of clicked as like, she's kind of right, right? Like there's this thing of like the hustle mentality is good, but truly go after your potential. And you know, it was it was really interesting when one of my friends asked me six, eight months ago why, because before One MRI, uh, I was an investor in a company called OfferFit. I've kind of helped them get a, you know, um grow quite quickly. OfferFit got acquired. And so there was a really nice windfall that came in that allowed me to do a bunch of things that I wanted to do. And one of the things I wanted to do since I was a little kid was play golf. I could never afford it when I was young, and then later in life, I just never had a time. And so I was gonna get a I signed up to Indrapilly Golf Club, which is quite expensive. I got a full-time coach and I was like, spend the next couple of years playing golf. And um, all of our lunches and coffee. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. How old were you then? Oh, this was just two years ago. Two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And um, and um, my friend Lon was like, hey, what made you take the risk to go do this? Because the other thing is I could have also just stayed at off of it and it would have been paid quite well, et cetera. And I was like, What do you mean? He goes, Oh, like it's a big financial risk, et cetera. And I was like, oh man, I never saw it as the financial risk. Like until Lon asked me about it, actually didn't click. For me, it was like, dude, to spend time with people like Vu who think big picture and allow me to kind of get off this snoo business, you know, the ideas to like much bigger opportunities. That's kind of where I want to be. And so sometimes, you know, when we ask the question, do immigrants make great entrepreneurs because they're risk-taking appetite? It could just be that immigrants are just always seeking better opportunities, you know, always looking for more. And it's not the, you know, they they never satisfy the Maslow hierarchy of needs. When life is, you know, eight out of 10, they kind of go, why is it not 10 out of 10? Like, what more can I do to get 10 out of 10?

Don

Or is it because everything's not there lined up for you? So you've got to find ways to get a crown and and find solutions. Yeah. I think that has a lot to do with it because we have to be inventive and creative on the I I often get asked about sort of Australia's innovation ecosystem.

Vu

Right, you know, why don't we why aren't we able to do what Silicon Valley does or what other sort of countries do? The the paradox is that because we're the lucky company, uh lucky company, lucky country, we also have a lot more, we also have this feeling of we have a lot more to lose to an extent as well, right? Similar to what I was saying in terms of my my friends who are doctors now, who've done decades of training and you know, the the ability to take a risk, you know, that they're moving from a much higher base. But I think in general as a society, we actually have a much higher base. And so if you ask my parents, they go, You have an amazing safety net where you can take that risk. But the flip side of that exact same coin is someone saying, Hey, we've got this amazing safety net, I don't want to bugger it up, right? As an individual. And that in itself, you would have experienced that and seen that in the corporate world, as right.

Gopi

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think again, it goes back to luck. If you're lucky enough that you have a true north in life that aligns that you actually, you know, resonate with, internalized, you have great self awareness and it aligns with what we're talking about today. Wells, the wells of your oyster, right? Like my true north in life is all about building relationship and learning and pushing the envelope, etc. And so, like when Vu and I met the first couple of years. Was us getting together hoardly and just talking about life. Vu would talk about, you know, like we would share concepts of like what our values are and how we use values as our concept in life and how life gives you stepping stones and you've got to step on these stones, but you kind of know what need to know where your true north is. And so mine was always about building relationships. And so when he pinged me about one MRI, I was sitting there going, I go out of my way to have coffee and lunch with Vu and Andrew once a quarter. What it would be like to just hang out with these guys every single day. And sometimes when things get really tough, I mean, when you're building a business, it you get into the depth of depth of desperate, you know, desp desperation.

Vu

Elon Yeah, Elon Musk calls it uh chewing glass and staring into the abyss, right? The world of being a founder.

Gopi

Yeah, like that moment of anxiety and stress. And then that big picture allows you to take a step back and everything else doesn't matter. You go like what really is important is the fun we're having on this journey. And then we'll start chatting, and then all of a sudden it's like all the day-to-day stuff kind of dissipates and you get a bit of better clarity. You, you know, uh tackle what's in front of you. But I reckon it's a lot to do with luck, a lot to do with people around you, having these conversations, allowing you to truly tap into what you want to get out of life. But you create that luck, right?

Don

And I've got to uh back you up on that. Like I I love the conversations we have, and you guys are never not available to people. Whenever they reach out to you, you're you're there for a coffee or lunch or whatever it is. One thing I've always noticed is if I've ever caught up with Vu or Gopi, whether it's a business meeting or uh catch up as mates for a coffee or lunch, I've actually never walked away not learning something new. And I think it's very kind, thank you. That that's that's huge. It's not intentional.

Values True North And Mental Reset

Magnus

Can can I just ask you to expand on? Because I love what you said about values. And as I've gotten older, that's been supremely important for me. And any business relationship that I'll get into has to be founded on those values. And off the back of that, then everything else seems to have a flow. So do you mind expanding on that? And is there any, would you share your values?

Gopi

Yeah, I'll I'll share mine with the caveat that this is going to make me sound very egotistic and narcissist, but you know, with that on the table. So my values are pretty simple. And I went through a journey in life where um, you know, chemistry's refugee didn't have much money growing up, et cetera. Mum and dad never had a home. And so they always rented. And then um, my sister and I had a conversation when we were like 17. We were like, hey, the biggest liability, and it's gonna sound really bad, the biggest liability in our life is gonna be our parents, where we can't get to do the things we want to do because we always have to look after them, et cetera. One of the things we could do is get them a house, get them sorted out. And so, you know, at the age of 20, and my sister was 21, graduated first job, we bought a house for like, you know, $500,000 and we were getting paid $5,000 a month, and you know, um, our mortgage repayments was like $3,000 each or something like that. And so the next probably set, that was 2011 to 2017, the next six years of my life was all about paying down the house. So I worked in engineering and realized engineering didn't pay that uh that well. And I was like, what's the next best paying job? Probably in finance. And I was like, oh, McKinsey pays really well. So I went to McKinsey and you know, it's just it was all about paying down the house. And in 2017, we paid down the house. And I remember we're at 2 a.m. at a bank doing some work, and I was just like, why am I doing this? Right. Like, I don't need to do this anymore. I've paid off the house, I could do whatever I wanted, and um yeah, I could do anything I wanted. And then all of a sudden I realized I actually don't know what to do in life. Like I've had this one siloed view. I actually didn't even know what I enjoyed, I didn't even know what my value was, et cetera. And I went into depression. I like really struggled. I had to take six months off work, I couldn't function. And then I did a bunch of wild things. I did like um 10 day Vipassana retreat. So 10 days not talking to anyone, silent meditation, 10 hours of meditation per day. I maybe meditated 10 minutes my whole life and went full deep into this. I did like wilderness walks, et cetera. And through that, I discovered what my values were. And it's really important to say that um I'm saying this to you. And this could be just me just saying something that allows me to feel better. This could be complete BS, or this could be true. I don't know. So my values, what it turned out to be was autonomy. So being able to do this, you know, this is a weekday, we're doing this, like not to be able to be like, oh, I can't take time off work, et cetera. I really wanted autonomy, sorry, uh, flexibility. Second thing was autonomy. So coming up with the goal and then having the freedom to execute versus having someone who steps it out. Working with great people that when we're 60 years old, we're hanging around the campfire and we're sharing stories of the battle scars, et cetera. And we, you know, you work with all these people that in the end you all become lifelong friends. Um doing cool work, looking back and being able to brag to my grandkids about all the different stuffs that I've done. And the last one is making good money today that allows us to go on holidays and a couple of other things, but having the shot at making life-changing money. And so these things became probably from 2017 to now, everything that I've done in life more or less fits these things. And as opportunities popped up, like some would resonate louder. So when the one MRI opportunity pops up, it was like definitely resonated more in terms of the people and the type of work and the financial outcome, a little bit less around flexibility and autonomy, because as a founder, you know, that gets kind of taken away.

Don

I remember the conversations for the last four years or so, the every conversation. I think when I've lost my true note, that's all you bring it back saying this is why you want to do it and this is you know why we're doing it. I even remember when you first um started thinking about offer fit, like the that whole process of deciding how you wanted to do it and and what you wanted to do with that business, you actually applied all of that. And that's how you you've come to most of your decisions. So I've I've got to say the fact that you've been able to stick to that true north has been really good to watch. And I think some of the success that you've had in life is because you've always had your eye on the ball. Vu, what's your I'll keep it really simple.

Vu

Uh life's too short to work with dickheads. Like just to keep it really simple, right? Like at the end of the day, what it really comes back to is Dopey was saying before, working with people you want to work with is super important. I've worked with both of you before, right? And so you get that that's what's really important to me. I I've got a firm belief that like you know, but doing whatever it may be that we do will be successful in some way or form. So if you have if you believe that you're gonna be successful, then the answer is just who do you want to go on that journey with, right? Like one of the best things, and it's kind of related to it's not so much a values piece, but um to orientate you in terms of sort of the luck that I've had is I've got an older brother who's 10 years older than me, right? Vin, he's a general practitioner. I've always looked up to him. He's sort of been my idol since I was a kid, right? And when I was 15, 16, getting ready to choose my subjects for year 11 and 12, which back then feels like you're choosing the bearing of what job you're gonna have, and what job you're gonna have is pretty much gonna dictate the next 45 years of your life as a 16-year-old. Um thing he said to me, which he will never remember saying to me, but I remember it because it sticks with me to this day, is that Vu, you're gonna be successful at anything you do. So do whatever the hell you want. And that's that that to a 16-year-old kid is huge, right? Especially when it comes from someone that you really look up to and admire.

Magnus

It's got goosebumps. That reminds me, my my mum used to say that to me is whatever you put your mind to, you can do. And and I think as a like you said, as a kid, that's that's powerful.

Vu

Well, because then you turn that a flip it on its head and saying, okay, cool. So now what do I want to do? Because if it if if if all roads lead to success, whatever success is defined as, then the answer is going, well, okay, how do I cook this in a way that I'm actually going to enjoy it? Right. And so that principle has always come back to working with people I love working with, right? And that's super, super important. So if I if I say to you, Don, no matter what you do, what business you start or what you do, you're gonna be successful. Then you're gonna be like, you know what, I'm gonna pick and choose the right people to do that, go on this journey with, right? Um, because and that that for me is it's it's a bit of a weird way to look at it. It's not a uh a uh, I guess, a a bit about self-belief. It's this idea of like, if you believe this is what's gonna occur, then how do you kind of make sure that journey is a bit that you want? Like Gopi and I, and you introduced me this concept of we're in our mid-60s, we're sitting around a campfire, and the people who are sitting around with us and we're talking to them, right? Who are those people? And who are those people we've built relationships with over the pleading 30 to 40 years? And we talk about that from the investors we talk to, the customers we work with, the people we employ. Like that campfire analogy you mentioned before, which you and I talk about all the time and you introduce me to, is kind of a really important principle of like what sort of people do you want to work with, and therefore what sort of business do you want to operate.

Magnus

Yep. Let's talk about mistakes because I think that's one of the things that defines us. And um, I know through my own personal journey and I know some couple of young blokes at the moment, they've had a great deal of success. They're not even hit mid-20s yet, but they haven't gone through the fire, they haven't gone through the storm. And I think that is a real character-defining moment. Do you guys mind sharing the the biggest mistake that you've made and what you learned from it?

Vu

Oh man, there's too many. Uh that's why I said the best one. Oh, look, I think um if I look back at it and if I use sort of because we're still on the One MRI journey, right? But if I think about Go One, which for me is like a really great and like sort of big first chapter or first act of kind of my professional, like my my adult life, actually, because started doing Go One with Andrew when we were 16, what eventually became Go One, and you know, 37 this year.

Magnus

Maybe do you mind just uh briefly explaining to our listeners what is

Go1 From Websites To Global SaaS

Magnus

Go One? Yeah.

Don

I wouldn't mind, you know, I was part of that journey, but I wouldn't mind you telling us about that journey because that's I think one of the most inspirational stories to come out of Australia, Brisbane from a small town in Logan.

Vu

Uh I'll I'll keep it brief, but but ultimately, you know, the way I like to describe Go One to people is think of us as the Spotify for workplace learning. What we do is we aggregate training from all across the world, from a whole bunch of different providers, about 100,000 courses, put them all into one location and make them available to workplaces. So a B2B business, right? And you worked in our B2B team, Don. And we're very fortunate in that we didn't start out going, you know what, as senior olds, we said, we are going to be the Spotify for workplace learning. We didn't do that at all. We started off just building websites and building apps. We we knew two things. One, we wanted to work in technology, and two, we wanted to work with each other. That was it. Everything else kind of came second. Along the way, we built throughout high school and university, we built a professional services business, building websites, building applications to people. And then we got to a stage where post-GFC, um you guys remember, GFC didn't really hit us in Australia until really 2010-11, even though it's 2008. We just it didn't really, we didn't feel it until that point. And so that's when people stopped buying websites, buying apps, and they just kind of their their budgets just kind of stretched a lot more, right? And I remember getting to that crunch point and Andrew calling us together and saying, We need to jettison our business. I was going, wait, what? And you know, we'd we'd spent years building this up. We had a team of about 15 people, you know, it was it was painful, but we're still building something. It was our identity, a big part of our identity. And he said, Look, we don't own any of the stuff we make. And if we were to look back on this in 10, 15, 20 years' time, would we look on it back on it and go, the stuff we did was awesome? The stuff we did is great. This is very similar to the stuff you're talking about that motivated you. And at the time we had several different little businesses. In fact, we were one of the very first Salesforce implementation companies in Australia. So News Limited and the big banks, whenever they wanted to implement Salesforce, they'd send it to this small little firm. And we used to send a fully loaded bar to the Salesforce sales team every Friday. So they'd send us leads. I don't know if I should say that, but I will, right? And so they used to send us leads. So if you went and bought Salesforce licenses back then, and this is very early on for Salesforce when they just came to Australia, their sales team would be like, well, if you want to implement it, go talk to these boys, right?

Gopi

And you can't even say it, but like one of the banks, one of the big four banks. One of the website.

Vu

Exactly. So we we built this, like we built some really good stuff. And so we had this business that I thought was pretty sizable and pretty good. We weren't making lots of money, but we built something. And Andrew, and and and you guys both know Andrew, like, you know, Andrew sees stuff before other people do. And it's something that I will always bring up. He'll see things before they do, and it'll take a while for me to just catch up mentally and go, oh, okay, that's what he meant. And one of the things he said was he was like, we don't own it. We don't own Salesforce, we don't own the open source system we're building. And none of it is stuff that we'd kind of be super proud of at the end of the day, right? We're just building stuff for other people. One of the projects we did build for another bank was actually, well, for National Australia Bank was something called the Start Counting Program, which was teaching financial literacy to their consumers, especially their lower socioeconomic consumers. And of all the projects we worked on, that was the one we looked at and we go, we love that. We lost a bucket load of money doing it. It was highly unprofitable, right? But I don't know if you guys remember Marie Kondo, you know, the Netflix show where it's like you pick up a sweater and you go, Does this bring me joy? And if not, chuck it out. And if it does keep it. We literally did that with our business units, right? And when we Marie Kondoed the business, what we ended up with was 99% of it was out the door. And the 1% we wanted to keep was the thing that was least profitable, but gave us the most purpose, which was learning. And then so we went and restructured the business and focused on learning and jettisoned a whole bunch of stuff. And then we went through an accelerator called Y Combinator or YC. And then we got in and went through the whole journey of raising a seed round, a pre-seed round, a seed round, a series A, B, C, D. I think all up we raised three to four hundred million dollars to be able to build the company.

Don

What are you guys worth uh valued at now? I have no idea.

Vu

Two billion, two to three billion, something like that, right? Depends where the Australian dollar is at, how people want to value SAST. I think there was 4.5 billion at one thing. So But what I'd come back to is not just on the valuation front, but if you think about the sort of what we're able to create, we got to a stage where we had just under a thousand stuff across 22 countries globally, and we did it all from Southeast Queensland. And what I really learned along that journey was kind of what I do like and what I don't like, right? What I'm not made for is the corporate world, right? I'm not made for optimizing an op-to-win ratio by an extra 0.5% to bring an extra 20 million bucks. That's not really on the radar. What I do enjoy is being at the coalface, right? And for us figuring stuff out and building stuff from the early stage, as Gopi likes to say the zero to one sort of part. I really do enjoy. And so for me, the biggest sort of byproduct of the go on experience was actually learning a lot about myself and what I do enjoy doing. What I do enjoy doing is working at the early stage, figuring out stuff out from first principles. I one thing I'll always say about founders, and you guys, I'm sure you will agree with this, and Gopi hinted at it. As founders, we are all utterly unemployable.

Magnus

Utterly unemployable. I agree completely.

Vu

Yeah. So as a result of that, we create our own jobs, right? We we create businesses, roles, and opportunities for ourselves, that desire for autonomy that Gopi was talking about before.

Don

I totally agree. Even when you're working for someone, you try to create your own jobs. And that's what I've been doing for the last since go on, I guess. And I had my own uh founder journey, which started in 2016. And I don't know if you guys remember or not. I actually, first time I came to that Logan office was to find a learning solution that we couldn't find a solution from anyone else. And someone said to go and talk to these young kids that are doing it, we had to deliver this learning solution to Harvey Norman. And everywhere we went to, they said it's gonna take you three months and gonna cost you about $50,000. We walked into this Logan office above a massage parlor and we're like, where are we going? And I sent my team up, I said, I'm not even going out there. I think they're gonna waste our time. You're gonna lose a kidney. And I got a text saying they can do it next week, $10,000. Yeah. I'm like, whoa, this is this is crazy. And fast forward four years, I ended up working for these guys, but it starts with one of the biggest things I want to say, uh ask you as well. For me, when I first met Vu and Andrew, I think the first time or Chris, that was it. Like you talk to these guys, it was sort of like you want to be part of this, you want to work with these guys.

Choosing Co-Founders With No Ego

Don

How important is it to have the right people around you at the right time?

Vu

100%. Like, you know, I uh Gopi's got this great LinkedIn post where he was talking about how we started One MRI and you've posted the WhatsApp chat where I texted you saying, ready to be CEO, right? And you said always. And it was like, wasn't really sure the exact topic of how we're gonna do it. But it was this thing where, and and you know, you've known Gopi for a long time as well. You meet people and you go, I want to work with you. I don't know how, I don't know when, I don't know where, but we gotta find a way, right? And that for me is kind of one of those learnings that I took away from that first experience in Go One. Like, you know, I I I stepped back officially a year and a half ago. So tell me any other business you can think of where founders have been together as a founding team of four for going on 15 to 20 years. It just doesn't exist, right? And that's where I think a really important part of it is I go back to that principle of like being able to, if you if you strongly believe you're gonna be successful, then the next step is going, who do you want to enjoy that journey with? Right? You're gonna climb that mountain, you know you're gonna get to the top. The question's gonna go, who do you want to pop champagne with at the top?

Don

But how do you find that timing? Because, you know, Gopi, uh we've had many conversations. I think you said many times, like you want to find an opportunity to work with Andrew. Like you keep you you you were catching up with him every quarter. Yeah. And like, how do you how do you find when is that right time? How do you pick that time?

Gopi

Timing's No, sometimes it just has to work. I mean, like the way I met Andrew first was to a job interview. Um An from 1013, uh, you know, I was a uh 2017, actually off the back of, you know, the whole soul searching and stuff. And he was like, hey, why don't you have a chat with Andrew? Go on, like it looks pretty interesting. I had a chat with Andrew and it didn't feel right. And so I was like, here's someone I really want to work with, but um, this doesn't seem like the right setting, et cetera. Um, but I think that sometimes things just come through. And and also sometimes you never know how it's gonna play out in terms of that working relationship. Because this relationship could have never worked out. Um, but last night, you know, as down at the coast, sorry now, Saturday night, down at the coast, I was writing a memo of like the future of Wanamara and where things are going, et cetera. And there was a couple of double points I couldn't get my head around. So I called Andrew and I was like, hey, um, can we just chat through this really quickly? And then we started talking. Andrew's like, hey, hold up, what are you trying to do? I'm like, I'm just trying to write this memo. It's for myself anyway, but I'm, you know, hopefully we can share with other investors, et cetera. And then we started bouncing around the memo, et cetera. Next morning, Andrew sends a memo to us. He's like, hey, I've written something up. And I'm like, oh, cool. This is what I and quickly like bouncing off it. And I always admired Amazon's the whole six-page memo, writing memo before meetings and stuff like that. And it's pretty cool. I've got three, no, two co-founders who also love that. And we write papers before meetings. Like you sit down and write long-form papers where you actually write out your thought and people read it ahead of time and then you chat about it. And so sometimes it's just luck that you know all of that kind of comes together. But I think the big thing is the no-ego. I think just being able to leave the ego at the door and kind of walk in and take the idea for the face value as it is, giving people the room to be themselves. So when Vu calls me, um, sometimes our conversation is 10 minutes, sometimes the conversation is an hour, but I never kind of go, hey, we're on a shot clock, like we need to wrap it up, just because the faith of where we're going to end up is going to be a much better, bigger, better place. Um, similar thing with Andrew, when we kind of go into problem solving and stuff like that, we just give each other the space to be us. And so one of the things about Andrew is that quickly, Andrew will get to three steps ahead of me than I can be. And so one of the best things I can do in a conversation is take a step back, give Andrew the space to grab onto the wheel, and we'll get to there. And along the way, my input will be heard, et cetera. But it's quite easy to kind of go, no, like this was my discussion. I'm going to shape it. And that ego kind of like gets in the way of getting a better outcome. And because we're also outcome-driven, it's the outcome that only matters. Nothing else matters, like the process and everything doesn't matter.

Don

And I think it slows down to you talked about um founder groups, you know, lasting for so long. Um, but didn't you take it from I I was I joined the journey quite early. There was five of us at the end, there was there was this division that we created. And I don't I don't think any of us have worked at go one for the last five years. But when we finished at go one, we slowly started this poker game. Um it started as a dinner once a month, and then it sort of evolved into this poker game. And over the last five years, we have not missed a single game or a single catch-up. And I've never heard of that. And when I tell people like we we did that as a way to catch up after we left Girl One.

Vu

And it was I would say on my part, it was incredibly intentional because when you know people move on and you kind of move out of a business, you go, is this it do like our our reason for being connected was work, right?

Don

Yeah. Yeah.

Vu

And that intentionality of going, well, actually, we work really well as a team. You know, we we we enjoy spending time with each other. Let's put some intentionality behind that. It really helped, and we're saying this before, that our team's project manager is a guy who coordinates us and pulls us all together. Right. But it is that we give credit to John.

Don

Yeah. John is an amazing project.

Vu

But like, yeah, again, that that poker game, like it it for me, it's a it's a big chunk of going on the journey with people that you would spend time with and generally choose to spend time with. And I do think that, you know, the fact that we do catch up every month with the guys and we do play poker together and we all work together in some way or form at Go One kind of proves to me, at least personally, that like, yeah. The culture was right. Well, it was right. And we also had a team of people who are happy to spend time with each other years after we leave that workplace together. Right. That's that's the really cool part that I enjoy. And I do think uh, you know, going back to sort of that that point you were making before Gopi around like also that ego piece, right? Like I think that that's one thing that we'll find from a values perspective of all the people that it I choose to spend time with, and you know a lot of them, and you know a lot of them. That's a really common thread. Like we pick and choose who we get close to and who we don't get close to, right? And that that that that no ego bit or checking, we I would say that every single one of us has a very high degree of self-confidence and self-assurance in terms of the fact that we know we're good, we know what we can do, we know what we're good at. But it's not to the point that it we're ego driven. And that is, you know, now that you talk about that go be like that's that's a that's not an explicit value that I think about, but it's one that if I look at all my relationships, it's a super important one. Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of people who have big egos, but the sphere that they come into contact with me is very far, that orbit is very different to the people who are in the closer orbit, if that makes sense.

Magnus

Oh, that's a hundred percent good point. I know a lady, and she actually runs a group, and we all belong to a similar networking group, I understand. And that is very fixated on what your title is. And you when you're in a business environment, most of the time you're always introduced by your title. You're this or you're a former this. And that comes back to an identity piece. And in a previous life, I ran a large commercial construction company, and I'm a very relationship-driven person. And I'd built a bunch of relationships through that firm. And then after I'd exited and I'd make a phone call or send a text, hey mate, you want to have a cup of coffee? All of a sudden, there's there's no answer. And they were all associated with what I could do as part of that role. Transactional.

Gopi

Yeah.

Magnus

100% transactional. So what this lady does, this group that she runs, and they do it, she calls it a soul table. And there's a dozen people that get invited along. As you walk into that room, you're forbidden to talk about what you do or what position you hold. And so people walk in, they go, What am I going to say? And what she says is just ask the person, what are you passionate about? So all of a sudden, you're getting to know that person at a deeper level, and then you can understand there's some common ground. Like you start talking about values, for example, or whatever, but it's taking away that the CEO, that other mindset that you're not actually looking at it from a transactional perspective. Because again, from some of these networking groups, it's all about I'm going to go and talk to that bloke because I think that they might be able to do something for me. And it's not, well, I want to actually get to know that person because I've got shared values with that person. So I think that's a really good point. But back on my original question, what's the biggest mistake that you've made?

Biggest Mistakes And Not Sweating

Vu

Yeah, that's what I was glad to do. What's the original question? You take this one line.

Gopi

For me, I think it's like um, it's gonna sound really small, but the first house we bought was probably one of the biggest mistakes I made. And it was because of the thought process into buying the house. Um, uh, you know, uh paid mum and dad's house off in 2017. And then I was like, oh, it's probably a good time to kind of like buy the next place. So um my wife now, but partner at the time, we were like looking for a house, et cetera. And there's two things I did. One was I bought one which was significantly well within my comfort zone. And the second one was I because it was well within my comfort zone, I didn't even transact with the interaction, I didn't even interact with the transaction that much. I bought it without seeing it. I um only saw it the day that we got the key and kind of like walked in. I was like, oh wow, this is what we bought. But I think this this thing that I later on I realized in life, which was like never do anything for marginal improvement. It's kind of like if you're gonna, the transaction cost is just not worth it. And that's from both, from money, time, effort, all of the above. So if you're switching jobs just to switch for a little bit of more money or a little bit of more role, et cetera, it's just never gonna be worth it. Always go for the big thing. And um, yeah, it's it's just one of those things where like um just that mistake of not like backing myself, seeing the bigger picture, kind of going after it, like always stays with me. And that was 2017 or like a long time ago. There's a couple of pieces in that. One is like, you know, um, we were living in an apartment and we bought a house that was exactly the same as our apartment. So we could have just stayed in an apartment. That was the first one. Uh, the second one was not looking ahead, so then kind of going, hey, we're gonna start a family and stuff like that. Where do we want to be, etc.? Third one is backing ourselves, kind of going like, hey, like we're gonna be good financially. Like, why don't we just move to the bigger piece? I think this is the bit where being the refugee really hangs on you for a long time. Like that time of like not having money and really struggling, you're always like, um, oh, I've just got to make sure that like in a rainy day, you know, I'm gonna be okay. And then the rainy day, you know, I'm 37 now hasn't come yet. And so um, yeah, like there's a there's a few things in that, but it was it was that event brought all of those lessons to life. Like it was reflecting back always on that thing, and I still make the same mistakes, you know, in individual formats, but in some smaller ways. But that that event like really kind of taught me a lot.

Vu

What about you, though? I have been sitting here for the last few minutes, and and I don't want this to come across the wrong way. I can't think explicitly of anything, right? And this is me Don and Gopi knowing well enough that I'm not not normally lost words, but but like genuinely as as I think about it, I go gun against my head, what mistakes have I made that like what have I done that I really regret? And I'm sure in the moment or in the day or in the month or in the quarter or in the year, I think about it and I go, man, that was a stupid thing to do. But I always, if I look back on these things in hindsight, I go, it was either learn experience or it wasn't a big deal, or it wasn't as existential as I thought it would be, which probably makes me think going, holy cows, what have I done where I've got to sort of pay the piper soon in terms of realizing it was a mistake. It's just I'm a few years away from realizing that.

Don

Or everything you said before has facilitated that, right? The right journey, the right people around you. If things go wrong, you have other people to back you up.

Vu

I I can I can look at so many different small, look in my eyes, small things that I've done, which life would be better if I had done them. But I look back and I go, I don't regret any of those things occurring because it gets me to where I am today. I think I've got to, you know, I I I I I see a psychologist regularly, I've I've seen one for a long time to help me understand a bit more about my own head. And I've I speak to Gopi a lot after our session. I go, hey man, this is what I covered today and this is what I learned. And a big part of it is I feel like in the last few years, one thing I've become relatively, and I'm not always there, relatively more content with like right with what I said at the start is like dealing with what's in front of me and not thinking too far ahead. And a big chunk of it is if I look back, I go, there's nothing where I go, what's happening in my life today that I wish I did something different that would have changed where I am today. And I go, well, actually, I'm really happy where I am today.

Don

Can I rephrase that question in a different way, Ru, than for you? Is there anything that you would have done differently?

Vu

No, that's what I'm trying to say. Like anything literally, I've been reframing while Gopi's been buying me time for this conversation.

Magnus

I I understand where you're coming from because I've asked that question in the past to guests, and where they're going with their answer is effectively that you are where you are as a as a consequence of some of the mistakes that you've made. And if you wouldn't have made them, you wouldn't be where you are today.

Vu

I'll give you some really superficial examples of going, I held a buttload of NVIDIA before it became what it is today, right? A shitload. And that would be a massive financial winfall today if I didn't offload it. But the flip side that I come back to is I go, I'm okay with that. Like I'm genuinely like, I don't wake up at night and go, man, I wish I didn't sell all that NVIDIA, right? On the flip side of it is that like I like so there's a whole bunch of examples like that, but I don't like nothing kind of comes to mind that I dwell on it. There's a lot of bad calls in our organized.

Gopi

I got a half reset. But I think what about um things that like so I I'll I'll say one of Vu's sayings and then you tell me what triggered that um event. So one of you one of your biggest best things is not sweating the small stuff. Yep. How did you learn to not sweat the small stuff?

Vu

That is such okay, that's good. See, this is why it's good to have someone who knows you really well, right? So not sweating the small stuff was the anxiety that I would develop as a founder over things that are in hindsight. You look at it and you go, man, they were inconsequential, or you'll sort them out, right? And the problem is it's twofold. Um, thank you for giving me that. So I'll give you twofold. So one is when you sweat the small stuff and you miss the big ass friggin' problem, right? So that's the first bit that would come to you. You're so worried about the micro, you're missing the macro. You're so worried about what's happening with this customer, you miss the fact that you're missing the entire market and you're fishing in the wrong place, as an example, right? So the don't sweat the small stuff is twofold. One is the amount of anxiety we develop as business owners and founders over things that are minutia. Like the things I'll often, you know, we'll we'll talk about, we go, you know, there's there's don't sweat the small stuff combined with the world keeps turning. Right. So what that means is if I do this thing that I'm stressed about right now, if I get it done, does it move the needle? Okay, it does. If I don't do it, does the world stop turning? And nine times out of ten, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's like if I defer this till Monday, the world will keep turning. If I don't deal with this problem this week or this month, the world will keep turning. So the don't sweat the small stuff is actually the personal toll that as as founders and business owners, we know all the bodies are hidden. And in fact, no one's gonna drive us. There is no board, there is no shareholder who will drive this business more than we will ourselves, right? So we are our own worst judges. So, you know, the the biggest mistake based on what you're prompting me on, which is a really good one, is actually sort of learning to be kinder or not being so unkind to yourself as a founder and being so harsh on yourself because you know where all the flaws are, where all the bodies are hidden, where all the problems are. And then so you sweat that stuff, you don't sleep, you let yourself go physically, you let yourself go mentally, and that takes a toll. So you you know, I'm appreciative of Gopi knowing me and raising that. So the biggest mistake is actually probably not being able to understand where the priorities sit personally, and really being able to understand that this business does not survive if I'm not intact. Right, and as founders, and I mentioned before, the Elon Musk quote of being a founder is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. That's off the back of a Jensen Huang, who's the founder of NVIDIA, where he was asked by the guys from the Acquired Podcast given NVIDIA is now a four trillion dollar company and the biggest company in the world, and they said to Jensen, knowing what you know today, would you do this again? And guess what his answer was? No. Because as a founder, right, pure ignorance is actually a massive weapon, right? Not knowing how things will play out is a massive weapon. But then as a result of that, sort of knowing that that's actually a weapon and something that you can sometimes embrace is quite useful. So it's a long-winded way of coming back to going, the biggest mistake that I can think of that I make on a regular basis, and again, appreciate Gopi prompting me on this, is overthinking things that don't matter. And there's so many examples of that. I can see you guys are all nodding, right? There's so many examples of that where you kind of look back on it and you go, Yeah, man, that didn't matter. I wasted so much time, money, effort, energy, collateral of some some sort on something that was inconsequential, but at the time it just burnt it all up.

Magnus

A wise man once told me that when you're looking at a problem, if you think to yourself, is this gonna bother me in five years' time? And if the answer is no, then not to sweat it.

Vu

Well, you know, Govy, you and I talk all the time, and it's like, is this the hill I'm gonna die on as well? Right?

Don

Like that's the other that that's more around relationships, but that's different as well, right? I think we're gonna run out of time for this session, but there's a lot still to be covered. You're trying to redefine how health is delivered,

Working With Friends Trust And Speed

Don

how information is captured. There's a lot more to talk about. I think we need to come back. But I want to finish on one thing. There's always been this rule, like you never work with your friends and your family, right? But when I look at both of you guys and from the stories that we've shared today, it's like it seems like you're surrounding yourself with as many friends as you can. Well, my sister works your business, right? She was an LS higher.

Magnus

So you're I I think you've got to prerequise that with what you guys are saying before on the no-ego piece. And I think sometimes with family members that can be a problem. But otherwise, when you guys are set on your values, I think it's a it's but you can't think of anything better.

Don

Yeah, but I want to but I want to know, like you've you've created success. Uh, you know, Andrew had his whole family working in the business, you had your wife working in at Go One, and you know, you've you've hired your sister as the first employee at one MRI. What's the secret of success? Because you you seem to be either that whole saying is wrong or no, I think look, honestly, like and maybe what you said is is you know Honestly, it just depends, right?

Gopi

Like uh sometimes saying at a totality makes sense and it's true, other times at the minutiae, it's not true. And so, yes, there are a lot of friends I've got that I wouldn't work with, but there's a bunch of friends that I love working with. What one of the things, you know, just so we we have an office in the Fortitude Valley, and we have a couple of our friends who also share the office with us. And just because we love them having their own. And so I was showing Andrew and Vu this other area in the office, which was massive, and I was showing them about the idea, and then Vu was already chipping in by this other idea. And so we want to surround ourselves with the people that we like spending with because I think it goes back to this notion Andrew always points to is this concept called tripling down. It's kind of like if you can do two and three things at the same time that are like hitting three different verticals in your life, what a great time, right? Like that's efficiency. So for me, you know, I work 80 hours a week, but I get to hang out with my friends, I get to hang out with my sister, and I get to do cool work. And that's like now I don't need to find social time on the weekend to like you're not really working eight hours a week. No, he is. No, he is. I can say he's the CEO, he is. No, I'm hanging out with my friends 80 hours a week. What would you do otherwise? Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. It's redefining work. Yeah, I think it just comes back to what is important to you, and you'll find ways to do that. And I it's social for me is a huge element, and so for you as well. And so, as much of that if I can incorporate it to work, my life only gets easier.

Vu

Yeah. And I'll give you a bit of a logistical piece, right? Building where we're building in the high growth, in the in the high growth sort of innovation space, speed is incredibly important. The speed to grow a team is incredibly important, and one of the most important things too, building a team is trust. So if you can rapidly acquire trust in a team, you'll be able to scale a team and scale a business faster, at least in the early stages. It doesn't necessarily work in the later stages, but in the early stages. And so at the end of the day, what it really comes back down to is hiring people you know and hiring people you have strong relationships with and therefore trust removes one of the biggest unknowns in hiring people and scaling your business, at least in the early stages. Does that work for a team of 50, 100, 1,000? No. But in a team of three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, that curve, like that, that, that's the inner circle.

Gopi

The inner circle could just remove the variables. That's right. And the inner circle can come up both ways, right? So we have a bunch of colleagues now who are some of our close friends. And they came into one MRI, and that's kind of how we met them. But I think it goes both ways. I think it's like, for me, it's like I'm building the corporate Australia that I always crave for. And the corporate Australia that I always crave for is a company of people with no egos who's willing to help each other out, but who also in 10 years' time, just like you guys are playing poker, are still catching up. Like you guys are friends, you probably go work with each other again. I think it it's just what you crave and aspire for.

Don

I'll come to you in 10 years and ask how your corporate is. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Once you get to a thousand scarf and viva experience.

Final Thoughts And Subscribe Prompt

Magnus

We are out of time. Let's let's wrap it up and uh and come back again.

Don

Let's do that. I think um there's a lot more to talk about. And um, mate, thanks for coming in. And you guys are good to come back and have another chat with us. Yeah, sounds good.

Magnus

Awesome. Thank you both. Thanks for having us, guys.

Gopi

Cheers.

Magnus

Hope you enjoyed this exciting episode of the Mastering Podcast. If you got value from today's conversation, hit that subscribe button now and share this episode with a friend. Until next time.