I invest in and help build hard-technology companies.
Managing Partner at Outset Ventures, New Zealand's most active deep tech investor. The companies are industrial: rockets, reactors, refineries, and the unglamorous layers underneath. Climate and allied capability run through the work.
Based in Auckland, with regular time in Wellington, San Francisco, Washington, Sydney, Tokyo, and Europe. I write here occasionally.
Sovereign Capability from the Periphery
Why a small country on the periphery of the alliance system has to start building hard things again, and what that asks of capital, the state, and the people who choose to do the work.
-
What the Evidence Actually Says About Industrial Policy
A reading of the academic and multilateral literature on industrial policy. What works, what doesn't, and where the consensus has actually moved.
Essay -
The Five-Test Framework for Any NZ Industrial Intervention
A working filter for distinguishing real industrial policy from rent transfer, applied to the small set of interventions New Zealand should actually consider.
Essay -
Why Small Countries Have a Different Industrial Policy Problem
Israel, Finland, Denmark. What the small-country playbook actually looks like, and what New Zealand should be copying instead of importing the American or Chinese version.
Essay -
Why Managed Strategic Competition Needs a Periphery Strategy
Rudd's framework, applied to the small allied nations on the edge of the contest. What the centre owes the periphery, and what the periphery owes the centre.
Essay
Outset Ventures invests in hard-technology companies in climate and allied capability. They start in New Zealand and sell to the world.
Rockets and reactors. Refineries and foundries. The advanced computing and medtech that come with them. We write the first cheque and stay involved through scale, because these companies take a long time to build. Our portfolio sits in the lineage of Rocket Lab and LanzaTech, and we operate the Auckland campus where many are built.