The Full Spectrum: Entrepreneur, CEO and Investor - Paul Bassat, Co-Founder and former CEO Seek, and Founder Square Peg [S3.E5]
Paul Bassat makes for a unique 'Scaling Up' episode. As most listeners will know, Paul and his brother Andrew, along with Matt Rockman founded Seek in 1997 and in doing so carved the path in Australia for great technology businesses. This was a time when the internet itself was in its early days, and it is hard to fathom the foresight required to build what is now a $8b company. Paul left Seek in 2011 and has since founded Square Peg, one of South East Asia’s leading venture capital companies, with investments including Canva, Deputy, Airwallex and Bruce Buchanan’s ROKT, who was featured in episode 2 of this podcast. Because of the duration and success of Paul’s career, we traverse time periods in this conversation to extract the key lessons he has learned through the lens of Seek and how he has applied them in years since. There is no one in my mind who has seen the full spectrum of the ecosystems as a founder, a board member and investor, and so being able to compare and contrast all these experiences makes for a fascinating conversation. Paul is a an Australian treasure for so many reasons, and I am hoping after this conversation you can see why. Show notes to come.