In this candid anniversary conversation, Hg's leadership team of Matthew Brockman and Nic Humphries reflects on 25 years of building one of Europe's most focused software investors. Humphries shares the challenge of convincing colleagues to abandon multiple sectors for pure software focus, while Brockman opens up about his leap of faith in 2010, le…

In this compelling conversation, Tidemark Capital founder Dave Yuan shares his journey from Bain consultant to building one of the most thoughtful voices in vertical SaaS investing. Yuan reveals his "control point" philosophy—identifying the mission-critical systems that small businesses would turn off last before going bankrupt—and explains how th…

Orbit 48 sees Dr Amr Ellabban sit down with Des Traynor, co-founder and CSO of Intercom, to explore how AI requires revolutionary thinking from businesses. Des shares the pivotal moment when ChatGPT emerged in November 2022, spurring Intercom's bold 15-day pivot to develop Fin, their AI customer support agent. The conversation reveals how successfu…

What happens when AI can code? In this illuminating conversation with Cognition's Founding President Russell Kaplan, we explore how AI is fundamentally transforming the landscape of software development. Drawing from his journey through Tesla's Autopilot team and Scale AI, Kaplan shares profound insights on leadership in rapid technological change,…

In this episode of Orbit, Matthew Brockman, Managing Partner at Hg, sits down with renowned AI pioneer Andrew Ng to explore the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Andrew, who has led ground-breaking initiatives at Stanford AI Lab, Google Brain, and Coursera, shares fascinating insights on building in the AI era, including how the falling costs of proto…

As AI beds into the business world, a new breed of company is being born where the latest technology is built-in. Helping them to grow is an equally new breed of investor.In the first Orbit of 2025, Nic Humphries hosts sits down with Zoe Zhao and Annalise Dragic, co-founders of Azlin Software. With backgrounds in venture capital, M&A, and Hg's own …

In our latest episode Hg’s Managing Partner, Matthew Brockman, presses two CEOs and an AI insider on how a business leader can usefully integrate generative AI into their business workflows. David Carmona, a VP and CTO at Microsoft, Avaneesh Marwaha, CEO of US legal tech producer Litera, and Soeren Brogaard, CEO of Danish construction innovators, T…

Hg’s Joe Jefferies sits down with Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the CEO of Xero, to unravel the intricacies of leading a global software company and the personal journey that brought her to the helm. With a history of bold moves at tech behemoths like Amazon and Google, Singh Cassidy shares her philosophy on risk-taking, revealing how a series of strate…

In this enlightening episode of the Hg podcast series Orbit, host Joe Jefferies converses with Nick Mehta, the long-standing CEO of Gainsight, about the intersection of vulnerability and leadership in building a successful software company. Nick candidly describes his philosophy of "human-first" leadership, which has become a cornerstone of Gainsig…

As the CEO of Scandinavian software success story, Visma, this is Merete Hverven's second appearance on Orbit. Last time she pondered the reasons behind the Nordics' outsized contribution to the world of software, this time the same values of openness, competency over hierarchy and willingness to experiment come into play when running a scaled mult…

A veteran of the software industry for 25 years, Darren Roos is a disciple of the wisdom that failure breeds success. Battlescars that bring perspective and greater awareness of how to guard against the pitfalls of tough economic environments. He assures Hg's Nic Humphries that his abilities are not a result of intellect but rather hard-won experie…

As CEO of IRIS Software, Elona Mortimer-Zhika has been a valued part of the Hg Orbit for 8 years and counting. In Orbit 39, she speaks to long-term friend and Hg's Senior Partner, Nic Humphries, about her unusal path to tech leadership:from Communist Albania to retail jobs in the UK and on to an audit career for Deloitte.Tracking the stratospheric …

In the final Orbit recorded at Hg's recent 'Software Leadership Gathering', we brought together three perspectives all investigating the AI wave through a business lens.With the technology in an early phase, it can be viewed as an existential threat for businesses but without a clear path to commercialisation.Brent Hayward of Salesforce, David Carm…

Inspired by watching the surge in space exploration during his childhood in 70s India, through the 80s microchip era and on into the internet boom and a 25-year career innovating software at a large enterprise scale - Netscape, Bang Networks and finally VMware – Raghu Raghuram can claim authority and perspective on close to the entirety of our indu…

Born of the same crucible as Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, Joe Lonsdale and Eric Poirier have been building and investing in software for over two decades. As the General Partner of 8VC and the CEO of Addepar respectively, they have seen industries evolve and innovate.Speaking at Hg's recent 'Software Leadership Gathering', Matthew Brock…

If you thought “synergy” was yet another buzzword from the 80s (or 90s … ), like synchronicity, then you would be mistaken … unless you meant, like, 80 BC (or earlier).بقلم Dr Will

If you have been following along the current best practices you know that the answer is not … “multitask.” But is that advice even possible to follow? https://www.etsy.com/listing/1632838223/tech-team-building-buzz-word-bingoبقلم Dr Will

Time for a conversation with one of the greats.As Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia, former senior banker at both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and currently Senior Advisor at Evercore Partners, Jonathan Knee’s thinking is held in high regard across the business world. His recent book, ‘The Platform Delusion’, dismantles the long-h…

This is all about empathic listening … listening to understand … not just waiting for the other guy to finish so that you can say what is on your mindبقلم Dr Will

Would it be outrageous for me to suggest that the primary function of leadership is to teach? Because the primary function of teaching is to lead …بقلم Dr Will

The advances in technology on the clinical side of healthcare were shown convincingly in the speed of our response to Covid and in the new discoveries and improvements we continue to see.Covid may have also had a part to play on the administrative side - breaking down old habits and prompting the green shoots of innovation - but there is still a lo…

You can’t turn around without stubbing your toe on win/win solutions … everybody talks that talk. We hear about win/win quite a bit. It is a buzzword mercilessly deployed by salespeople who at least pay it lip service. Reality may not be so kind, though.بقلم Dr Will

After a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have.Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology.In part two of our conversa…

After a year when the sudden leap forward of Gen AI and LLMs took almost everyone by surprise, it’s a good time to ignore the hype, take a step back and look at what we have.Guido Appenzeller is a special advisor to a16z, a former CTO at Intel and VM Ware and a leading voice in the current wave of software and technology.In part one of our conversa…

Have you ever worked in - or with - an organization that really has taken the Quality message to heart? spl.drwill.co/freeconsultبقلم Dr Will

Always at the forefront of scientific progress, the world of healthcare continues to advance as technology and software are drawn in and adopted. But its uptake is uneven at best with some doctors having to cycle across cities with floppy discs in their bag while others experiment with artificial intelligence. With tightening budgets, the efficienc…

Jon is looking for a software solution for a specific problem - business model, actually. Seems he’s outgrown his spreadsheet. Jon “… suppl[ies] furniture to clients on an 'as and when' basis - i.e. we don't hold stock but order individual pieces for each client …” so he needs a solution that will “keep track on deliveries arriving to our office fo…

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is organized into two sections - Private Victory and Public Victory. “Paradigms of Interdependence” is the bridge between them. spl.drwill.co/freeconsultبقلم Dr Will

Psychologists will tell you that what you aim at determines what you see rather than what you see determines what you aim at … see the difference? I guess you would need to aim at the difference to see it. Spl.drwill.co/freeconsultبقلم Dr Will

So, I had a question from Tony V: “You gave three problems that non-technical technology project leaders have to figure out. I am a non-technical project lead on a software project … what do I need to know about these things?“بقلم Dr Will

You might be wondering … errr … where else would you put first things? I guess you’d be surprised where people put them … my Mom always said “a place for everything and everything in its place” … she’d want first things … right, you know, there … first. https://fs.blog/great-talks/common-denominator-success-albert-gray/…

Management is management, right? I recently polled a population of project managers asking the musical question - how much (or little) domain knowledge is needed to be an effective project manager? spl.drwill.co/freeconsultبقلم Dr Will

The world of reinsurance may seem obscure to most of us, but it is an elemental ingredient vital in keeping the wheels of business turning. Insuring the insurers; managing the risk of those who manage ours and allowing them to react to the world with more agility. This is ever more important as covid has given way to increasingly frequent catastrop…

I keep my finger on the pulse of various groups online looking for people to help. Sometimes you find people for whom the best advice is that you gotta “know when to run!” https://spl.drwill.co/costrisk https://spl.drwill.co/risk https://spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_riskبقلم Dr Will

“From this absolute belief that we could democratise an industry, to the belief that we can also help to democratise the society we live in.”A co-founder of Salesforce Europe, Dr. David Dempsey has been a standard bearer for sustainable business for many years. Taking a moment at our recent ESG Forum, David talks to Hg’s CSO, Caroline Löfgren, abou…

One of the key concepts in stoicism is that of “memento mori” Latin for “remember you will die.” I guess that works for everybody but Keith Richards … https://spl.drwill.co/costrisk https://spl.drwill.co/risk https://spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_risk https://www.selfauthoring.com/بقلم Dr Will

What do you think is the least secure part of your computer system? If you answered “the wetware,” you win a prize. Wetware is people, of course https://spl.drwill.co/costrisk https://spl.drwill.co/risk https://spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_riskبقلم Dr Will

If you build it they will … err … buy it, right? I mean … the engineering speaks for itself, right? Actually, no. But isn’t persuasion just marketing … or sales? Well, broadly speaking, yes. In the sense that you have to sell your ideas. https://spl.drwill.co/teamsبقلم Dr Will

“Dr. Will, we are preparing to migrate from the server version of Atlassian tools to the Atlassian Cloud … what advice do you have as we get under way?" Spl.drwill.co/webinar https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Dont-Know-Successfully/dp/B0BKJL9Nبقلم Dr Will

As CEO of dbt Labs, Tristan Handy finds himself at the centre of the "modern data stack" of many leading businesses. But what defines the modern approach to data, what came before and where is it likely to go next? Tristan speaks to Hg's own data expert, Tim Harrison. The past saw big data projects fail under their own weight: taking so much resour…

As promised, this is the first habit of the 8 habits of highly effective people applied to software development teams. Reminder: instead of crafting 7 (or 8 ) habits out of whole cloth for software teams, we are applying Stephen Covey’s habits and seeing where that takes us spl.drwill.co/risk spl.drwill.co/costrisk spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_risk…

Got a question from Chris W of Sioux City (Wait! Isn’t that where the Litigation Hall of Fame is?) … he is having some customer challenges … this may belong in the Q&A playlist, but it is germane to software projects, so here we are … spl.drwill.co/freeconsultبقلم Dr Will

It is usually after the fact - after you have traversed new terrain. Done something you’ve never done before. You look back – figuratively, maybe literally – and wonder at what just happened spl.drwill.co/freeconsult spl.drwill.co/webinarبقلم Dr Will

A lot of people know the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. I had heard of it years ago, but had never taken the time to read it … until recently. How many people know that the subtitle of the book is “Restoring the Character Ethic?” https://www.experis.com/en/insights/articles/2022/06/22/7-habits-of-effective-software…

It is reported that Microsoft is investing $1 billion (that’s billion, with a “b”) in OpenAI the parent of ChatGPT. We should be thankful that there are companies that are so generous and self-sacrificing and willing to help the open source community like that... Webinar: spl.drwill.co/webinar Book: https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Dont-Know-Success…

A catch-all term sweeping the tech world, 'Artificial Intelligence' couldn't be more exciting, daunting and, inevitably... vague. Thankfully Hg's Head of Data & Analytics, Amr Ellabban, learned his trade alongside Nebula.io Co-Founder and the host of the SuperDataScience podcast, Jon Krohn.From AlexNet's deep machine learning, to the human bias aga…

The “imposter syndrome” affects many (sub-)creators of training/coaching content – but they are reassured that they only have to be slightly more knowledgable than their audience. Maybe that is why there is so much fluffy training cluttering up the internet. What You Don't Know: https://a.co/d/fEPkAWD https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/dun…

spl.drwill.co/risk ChatGPT – a free online advanced AI chatbot that produces human-like responses to user prompts – is being used to generate college essays … among other things. (Doesn’t that make it CheatGPT?) So … what are the limitations of AI … or the dangers of it … or the opportunities …بقلم Dr Will

spl.drwill.co/freeconsult When people ask me what I did in the Air Force, I usually tell them that I “flew computers.” Looks like aviation doesn’t aviate without computers.بقلم Dr Will

If you have been setting goals and rewarding yourself for achieving them - if you achieve them - then you may be sabotaging yourself with your own dopamine. https://youtu.be/1TSTnDRnIAs spl.drwill.co/freeconsultبقلم Dr Will