Last chance for tickets to Caffeine's first in person event + Budget Day is here
Plus: Barnaby Marshall on Business is boring and OpenAI swoops up iPhone designer's hardware company.
Happy Thursday!
We are almost to the weekend team. Congratulations. I hope you have a productive day that’s markedly less stressful than all the poor business journalists gearing up to cover the Budget.
Today we’re kicking off with the final reminder that you should be getting some of the very few tickets left for our in person event next week! More details below.
And of course, you’re also getting your usual Daily Shot of news.
Here’s what’s brewing:
The Risk-Reward Equation: How to Innovate Without Derailing Your Startup
Event: Hi-tech Awards Gala Dinner - good luck to all finalists!
Budget Day is here but what what will be left for the startup community?
Pod pick: Business is Boring with Barnaby Marshall and Simon Pound
OpenAI buys iPhone designer’s hardware startup for $6.5b
Darth Vader, AI, Fortnite and the weird, weird future of entertainment:
As always, thank you to everyone who has upgraded to a paid subscription or simply recommended Caffeine to friends and whānau. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
Finn and the CAFFEINE team
We’re excited to partner with BNZ. As New Zealand's largest business bank, BNZ shares our mission to support the next wave of founders and operators. Over the coming months, we’ll be working together to share insights, tools, and stories that help you grow smarter and faster. Keep an eye out every Thursday for content powered by BNZ.
The Risk-Reward Equation: How to Innovate Without Derailing Your Startup
Very few tickets left for next week’s event, so move QUICKLY to secure your spot at Caffeine’s first ever in-person event!
We heard loud and clear in your feedback that while you love connecting with the Caffeine community online, you’re eager for some face time. Together with our partners at BNZ we’re so excited to host our first in-person event for founders and the wider startup community. It’s time to fuel your morning with founders, fireside conversations, and coffee. And best of all, the event will be:
FREE for you Caffeinators
When? - Wednesday May 28, 8:30–9:30AM (plus networking)
Where? - BNZ Auckland HQ – Level 18, 80 Queen Street, Auckland CBD
Dress code? - Smart casual
Startups are risky - but how do you know which bets are worth making?
Join us for a fun and honest fireside chat with James Hurman (Previously Unavailable) and Tim Wixon (CFA, Head of Technology Industries at BNZ). Together, they’ll unpack what risk looks like from their unique perspectives - and how they determine which risks are worth taking. Expect honest reflections, practical lessons, and a deep dive into the art of balancing bold decisions with smart execution.
Tickets
Free for the Caffeine community (and yes, you can bring a +1 on us – use code CAFFEINEFRIENDS. Just make sure you hit APPLY with promo code)
Otherwise: $81.45
Limited spots – first in, first served.
What’s included?
Barista coffee & tea
Breakfast
Lessons and insights you’ll actually use from James + Tim
Networking with the right people (aka other legends building great things)
Get your ticket and secure your spot HERE.
Budget Day is here but what what will be left for the startup community?: Spare a thought this morning for the many journalists who are gathering in Parliament, being shepherded into a large lockup room with no internet and are then being handed a giant slab of very dense budget documents. They get to analyse them over a frantic few hours before an embargo lifts at 2pm this afternoon and they all scramble to publish their stories first or go on a live broadcast to explain some complicated financial data very quickly. I did it last year and I was very sweaty by the end. I am a words guy, I got into this business to hide from math, not confront it.
As we touched on yesterday, the Government has given some pretty strong signals that tech and the startup community are priority areas for them in how they see New Zealand growing its way out of an economic slump.
There have been some positive moves like the $100m Elevate Fund top up and the $71m injected into the Robinson research institute. However, what usually happens is Government will throw out a few lollies ahead of time to distract us from the inevitable cuts which will be coming in the actual Budget - which Nicola Willis has already signaled is particularly austere.
I will be watching closely but expect the best of the budget from a founder’s perspective has already been released but crossing fingers that I am wrong.
Event: Hi-tech Awards Gala Dinner - good luck to all finalists! A record number of companies entered the 2025 Hi-Tech Awards this year, with over 300 companies from across the country and from all areas of the Hi-Tech sector. The 30th Hi-Tech Awards Gala Dinner is on tomorrow a the TSB Arena in Wellington, with over 1000+ guests in attendance. For those not joining in person, there will be a livestream available here.
Some of the categories I have my eye on below but check out the full list of the finalists available here. Good luck to all and hope none of you have anything serious booked for Saturday morning!
PwC Hi-Tech Company of the Year
Crimson Education
Kami
Link Engine Management
SYOS Aerospace
Tait Communications
ASX Hi-Tech Emerging Company of the Year
Calocurb
Ideally
Projectworks
RoofBuddy
Punakaiki Fund Hi-Tech Start-Up Company of the Year
Mindhive Global
Toku Eyes
VXT
Pod pick: Business is Boring with Barnaby Marshall and Simon Pound - Absolutely iconic crossover episode of Business is Boring as friends of Caffeine Barnaby Marshall and Simon Pound put a lie to the name of the podcast with a fascinating chat. These are two of the best brains in the business and any founder could do a lot worse than taking some time to hear what they have to say. In this episode, they unpack the age old question - to VC or not to VC?
Venture capital is one of the most prominent types of capital out there. But it isn’t necessarily a great fit for every founder, startup or business.
For those of you who missed our own chats with Barnaby Marshall and are wondering why you should tune in, he is a partner and investor at Icehouse Ventures. Barnaby has invested in and supported great companies like Dawn Aerospace, Basis Tracksuit, and Ideally - and is part of Brand Fund - which is where host Simon Pound got to see him at work up close. But he is also an entrepreneur and active business grower. Before VC he was a co-owner at I Love Ugly and part of its incredible growth journey, and today he is also an owner at New Ground Coffee.
Listen to the full episode here.
OpenAI buys iPhone designer’s hardware startup for $6.5b: Scott Galloway has a take about AI that I tend to agree with and it’s that the winner of this race will need to find a way to marry slick, cool hardware with incredible software and for that reason he puts his money on Apple eventually being the company to dominate the next age of technology as it has the previous one.
Someone at OpenAI has clearly been listening to his (excellent) podcast because Altman’s company has acquire io Products, the hardware startup belonging to Jony Ive - the man who designed the iPhone. Previous attempts at making a wearable form of AI work have stumbled pretty hard - Humane AI pin anyone? - but if anyone can make this work, it’s the combo of OpenAi and io. While I would argue AI as a technology obviously has it’s ‘killer app’ in Chat GPT, there is another level of adoption unlocked when its made tangible in a slickly designed product. The iPhone truly changed the social and financial world when it launched in 2007. We might be at that kind of hinge point now. Reuters has a good wrap here.
Side Bar: Look at this photo of Sam Altman wearing an All Blacks jersey and looking 12 years old when he was touring NZ in his Y-combinator days in 2014. It’s from a recording of him talking to startups at an Auckland meetup available on Youtube. What a fun time capsule. Watch it here.
Darth Vader, AI, Fortnite and the weird, weird future of entertainment: Okay let’s finish with a strange and silly one. Yes, this story is about AI, Darth Vader and video games so you could essentially say it was aimed squarely at me, Finn Hogan, and I am spiritually obligated to cover it. But I promise there’s a good reason. Good wrap on BBC here but my thoughts below.
Fortnite is one of the most wildly successful video games on Earth, to the point where it is almost harming the rest of the industry by soaking up all available attention, and that gives them the kind of clout to do wild crossovers with any intellectual property they choose.
Recently they’ve been in a Star Wars season and Darth Vader has shown up in game, which seems normal enough.
However his iconic voice is not a recording of James Earl Jones, but an AI powered clone of that voice. Gamers can interact with Darth Vader and have him respond ‘naturally’ to their inputs, which has obviously led to some wild conversations.
It has sent alarm bells ringing across the industry as voice actors slam the decision to not have a human involved and instead recreate the most famous villain voice in history using AI and SAG-AFTRA and have filed a lawsuit.
Unfortunately, I think this is just the start of us seeing a lot more AI actors in famous properties with wild business and societal implications.
What happens when no actor ever dies because their AI likeness can live forever and we can even interact with them to stage our own scenes.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Want to get in touch with a news tip, bit of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co