Why Great Powers Sleepwalk to War — A Masterclass with Prof. Hugh White

2,500 years of strategic history, 11 books, one afternoon.  Hugh White is Australia's foremost strategic thinker: former senior adviser to Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in Defence, inaugural Director of ASPI, and principal…

Australia's last great act of economic courage — Peter Costello

Peter Costello is the longest-serving Treasurer of Australia (1996–2007). He led the most complex overhaul of Australia's tax system in the postwar era: introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) — a value-added consumption tax — while abolishing a range of indirect taxes (notably wholesale sale…

The Discovery of The Bacterium Behind 5% of All Cancers — Barry Marshall

One bacterium causes roughly 1 in 20 cancer cases worldwide. It’s the most cancer-causing pathogen we’ve found—and the main cause of peptic ulcers. Its discovery overturned an ironclad medical dogma that the stomach was sterile. Despite infecting about half of humanity, Helicobacter pylori wasn't …

Australia’s ‘Great Stagnation’: Everything You Need to Know About The Productivity Crisis — Greg Kaplan & Michael Brennan

Stagnation! The 2010s witnessed Australia’s weakest productivity growth in six decades. How much of the slowdown is homegrown? How much reflects the broader “great stagnation” plaguing the West? How much is simply an artefact of the way “productivity” is measured? And what would a credible new g…

Francis Fukuyama — AGI and the Recommencement of History

Francis Fukuyama is a Stanford political scientist and the author of (among many other works) The End of History and the Last Man—arguably the most influential work in political science of the past half-century. If “History” is driven by technology, how does Fukuyama now view biotech and AI—and th…

Laura Deming — On Pausing Biological Time & Preserving the Continuous Self

Laura Deming is a technologist and venture capitalist focused on anti-ageing and life extension. At 17, she founded The Longevity Fund (followed by age1), the first VC firm dedicated to longevity biotech, after being selected in the initial cohort of Thiel fellows (2011). Today she is also CEO and …

Eight Things I Learned From My Aussie Policy Series

I share the 8 biggest things I learned from my Australian policy series. The conversations totaled more than 12 hours of discussion. Grateful to my guests and to everyone who attended the live events. Was really fun to meet and hang out with you all!

Ken Henry — What Killed the Reform Era? [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

This episode is the seventh instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on April 29, 2025.  I speak with Ken Henry—former Treasury Secretary and chair of the landmark Henry Tax Review—about why Australia hasn’t achieved major economic reform since the GST, and what must chan…

Sam Roggeveen — Why the US Won't Fight China for Dominance (and What it Means for Australia) [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

This episode is the sixth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 26, 2025. I speak with Sam Roggeveen—Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, and a former senior analyst at the Office of National Assessments—about why the United Stat…

Peter Tulip — What Will It Actually Take to Solve the Housing Crisis? [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

This episode is the fifth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 12, 2025. I speak with Peter Tulip—Chief Economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, and a former senior researcher at both the Reserve Bank of Australia and the US Federal Reserve. We go…