Level Up

I wake up in the morning unsure of whether I want to savour the world or save the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
— E.B. White

I was recently invited to travel to Israel as part of a delegation organised by Square Peg Capital and the Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce.

One of the people I met was Eitan Wertheimer, who sold his family business to Berkshire Hathaway in 2013 for $6.05 billion (that .05 is $50 million - when talking in billions even the second decimal point is material!) He spoke about the challenges of growing and selling the business. But, interestingly, he also talked frankly about how he struggled with what came next.

While our windfall from the Trade Me sale to Fairfax in 2006 was several orders of magnitude smaller, that resonated with me, as it similarly forced me to develop a whole new range of skills in short order: managing money, investments and philanthropy.

To date we’ve managed by a combination of brute force and negligence.

Ben Casnocha recently wrote about his experience working as Chief of Staff for Reid Hoffman. He talks about “The 40% Question” - i.e. if you think you’re working at 60% efficiency then what would it take to bridge the gap, and how would life be different if you did? That question is full of intrigue for me! And the rest of the article hinted at some of the answers.

Clearly the way we have been working doesn’t scale. It’s time to level up.

So, we’re delighted to announce that we have hired Sacha Judd as our new managing director, with effect from October this year, across our private investments, early-stage ventures and non-profit foundation.

Sacha has been a corporate and capital markets partner at Buddle Findlay for the past eight years, and has specialised in working with early-stage and high-growth technology companies. She is a significant contributor to the sector, through her work with events like Refactor, and her focus on educating and empowering founders.

We have worked together with Sacha on many of the ventures we have invested in, including Vend, Timely, Atomic and Revert, as well as co-hosting an annual Flounders’ Club retreat at our fabled Unicorn Farm, near Nelson.

I’m still in shock, frankly, that we were able to get somebody of her calibre to agree to do this job. I’m very excited about the possibilities that this creates for all of us.

You can now find us at hoku.nz. Stay tuned…!