Angelo Giuffrida On Building VentraIP

Angelo: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's a Daily Talk Show episode 601.

Tommy: We're out of the studio and we're in Narre Warren, your old stomping ground, Josh. Told us some great storeys along the way, which I won't bring up.

Josh: Could involve Krispy Kremes.

Tommy: No, that was different day.

Josh: We are in what I would describe as a very red room. We're at Venture IP. Angelo, welcome.

Angelo: Welcome. I like that. I just like, just Madonna. I just want one name.

Tommy: I mean, you've got a jacket. This is your office here. This is your HQ. Yes. It's a— I mean, you've got— this is what I love, like, not ornaments, but like sentimental things in your office. So you've got a scooter behind us. You've got two versions. You've got an electric and an old Vespa.

Angelo: Yeah, I've got a Tesla, so I'm making the transition from like petrol to electric.

Josh: I love it.

Tommy: I love it. But what is this in the corner? Out, out, out. It's a bath gown or some kind of gown on a mannequin, which I can put it on if you like.

Angelo: No, it's— oh, this is a storey from— it's actually, it's probably gonna— I made it sound better than what it is now. God, it's gonna be disappointment. I'm known for being really quite level-headed and calm.

Tommy: Sorry, if the storey shit house, you're gonna put it on?

Angelo: All right, fine, you can judge that. With nothing or like—

Josh: Exactly.

Tommy: Do you want me to leave my clothes on? I was like—

Angelo: I'll leave that up to you.

Josh: Exclusive to the Facebook group.

Angelo: All right, all right, all right. And we, you know, we were talking earlier about constantly doing renovations to this place. So when we were building the area that you saw earlier, which had the, you know, the common area where the the fishbowl is, what we call. And we had the doors open because the builders are coming in and out, in and out, in and out. And we had a bunch of people just turn up, like a row, like 10, and it became 15 that were like literally congregating through our office just for a tour of our office, self-appointed tour. And I was out in the kitchen having lunch and it was, it was about 1 o'clock and, and people were around. And someone came up to me and goes, who the hell are these people? And I said, I don't know. So I went over to our Buddha who was like talking to them and I said, oh Ben, who are these? He goes, oh, these are some people from upstairs. They just wanted to see the space so that they just walked in. I said, that's fantastic, but you can all get out, out, out of the office. And like herded them out of the office and it was now tokenized. So I got a jacket made that says out, out, out, that's sequin.

Josh: There's a joke with a client that we had that did the exact same thing.

Angelo: Out, out. It's to complement my clearly level-headed nature. I love it. And yeah, I herded them out. There was a footage from the security system that like got made into like a 15— I could probably find like a 10-second snippet of me just herding people out of the building.

Tommy: I love it. You don't have to put it on, but I want a photo with you in it at the end.

Josh: Um, having a business that does web hosting, how do you describe to the average person what web hosting is?

Angelo: It's—

Tommy: I'm the average guy here.

Josh: Tommy wants to know.

Angelo: Yes. It's essentially a place where all your website lives, um, and we serve it, I suppose. So I'm trying to describe web hosting without the words web or hosting in the description. I got a description the other day that was like, it's where websites get hosted. I'm like, yeah, you just repeated what it is. That's not a description. Uh, so essentially website files, to get complex, sit on a server in the cloud. Um, and when you request that from your browser at home on your internet, you request it from the from the cloud, from the servers, and pull it down to your computer. The web hosting part is the storage on the cloud and then the serving of that content to the end user. So that's web hosting. And that was not a grandma— your grandmother would have fallen asleep from that description. Um, but yeah, that is web hosting in a nutshell. There's a lot, a lot— that's very simplistic.

Tommy: But, uh, so this is, I feel like, some kind of Candyland for Josh.

Josh: Like, I don't think I was annoying you before with all the questions I was asking.

Tommy: Well, there's a lot of questions, but it's because you're in your element. It's it's very tech heavy, which let's explain how we even have got to be here.

Josh: Well, yeah, so we had a, we were with a web host that was in the US. We had issues with our, it turns out there was, what, self-managed? Was it self-managed?

Angelo: Yeah, we had an instance and we just self-managed it and installed it.

Josh: And it turns out that I was like, oh, well, 97's got it all covered, we're fine, he's managing it. And then one day we decided to Uh, he's like, oh, there's updates, should I run the updates? I was like, yeah, sure, you can run the updates. And so he runs the updates and our whole site goes down, and he starts sweating and goes, ah, it's not working. He's like speaking to— trying to speak to support of this company, this American company, not having any luck at all. And it turns out, I'm like, so like, what's the learning here? It's like, well, we shouldn't self-manage, we should have someone manage it for us. And so then we're like, okay, let's go local let's find who can we do it so we can actually pick up the phone when, you know, we shit the bed.

Angelo: When you click update.

Josh: How do we avoid 97 clicking update?

Angelo: You don't let him have a computer. That's the key. Yeah, I think that's the takeaway. I mean, don't let him click update.

Tommy: It wiped the whole entire site, didn't it? That's crazy. We lost it all, but then somehow you got it back.

Josh: Yeah, so we worked it. We were able to, you know, find a backup or whatever. But yeah, I mean, talking about the backup— oh, sorry, the update thing. 97 is the type type of guy to walk in the morning and cheque if there's a macOS update to buy himself about 45 minutes of extra time. The other day I was like, what are you doing? He's like, mate, I've still got 40 minutes.

Angelo: I do the exact same thing walking into meetings. Oh, I clicked update, I'm sorry, I can't, I just, I can't, I can't do this now.

Josh: And so I didn't realise the importance of having something like hosting local. Is, is that a big thing that you've noticed, that people coming to Venture IP?

Angelo: Yeah, that's, that's— I don't want to make this like a sales pitch, it's, it's, you I'm not a salesperson. I—

Tommy: we—

Angelo: the differentiating factor between us and some of the, the other players in the market is that it's 100% Australian. Apart from your data being in Australia on Australian servers— I don't know what the servers that exist in Australia, um, your actual support, your infrastructure, your team that you rely on, um, that you— well, when something goes wrong, is all in Australia. So you pick up the phone 24 hours a day, there's someone here in Melbourne actually, just literally a couple of doors, a couple of walls behind here, that you'll speak to. Um, and that's the differentiating factor, is that people don't realize. I mean, hosting with an overseas provider who's a couple of dollars a month or, you know, hundreds of dollars a month and it's overseas is all good and well until something goes wrong. And when something goes wrong, that's a true test of your provider and the ability to— for your provider to respond. So that's where we differentiate. I mean, a lot of our— a lot of the customers that come to us and a lot of the stuff that we learn in from the market is that people don't really know that they need a new provider or that we kind of really exist as an alternate until they need it. Um, which is really like, it's, it's so simple to think about, but people don't really— like, you don't realise it's— I, I don't want to use the term a utility because I don't think it's, it's anything of that scale. But you turn the power on, you turn the light switch on, it comes on. You don't think about your power, you don't think about the, the infrastructure, you don't think about the retail company supplying it. It works. But when something goes wrong, then you think about it all, and you're like, what can I do to— exactly as you said— to mitigate this from happening again? And that's where we— where our differentiator is, is the fact that we are that when you need us, we're here. And you don't really know that you need us if you're not with us until you need, that sounds really, but yeah, until you need us. So yeah, that's it. And that's the biggest thing that we find. And that's the biggest thing. And that's the thing that makes me happy. I mean, obviously businesses are in it, wanna make money and that's the premise of business. But primarily it's about offering Australians and offering, 'cause we focus primarily 99.9% on Australia. It's about offering Australians a choice that is still local, supporting local businesses, supporting local people in the southeast suburbs of Melbourne, as in the people who are working here, and then supporting people who— and giving them an option, you know, an option that everything else is outsourced, everything else is overseas. You know, you buy— you'd be surprised at how many people don't know that these large— I don't want to specifically say their name, I think their colour's green, and they used to be NASCAR sponsors, they do huge Super Bowl ads, which should give it away, but a lot of people don't realise that they're there.

Tommy: I didn't get it.

Josh: You were mentioning them in the car, the hot sauce guys.

Angelo: Yeah, oh, that's probably a better way, that's probably better. Yes, and that's the thing, it's all about their hot sauce.

Josh: Raymer. Yeah, Raymer.

Angelo: Oh, got it, got it, got it. Fathers, fathers, yeah, got it. Does he have father issues?

Josh: I don't know.

Angelo: No, no, I think we're all, yeah. No, a lot of people don't realise that they actually, all their support is not in Australia. None of their support's in Australia. I think they have a team, a small team in Australia. They have some Australian operations, but they're an overseas company primarily. And a lot of people don't realise that. And it's, you know, So kudos to them and their clever marketing, because what's more Australian than Raymar? But yeah, a lot of people don't realise that. And for the most part, I don't want to badmouth our competitors. This industry is so small in the sense that there's a handful of providers that everyone kind of knows everyone. So I don't want to badmouth anyone and say that their support's shocking. But you don't really know until something goes wrong. Like you click the update button, or until your hosting goes down, or until your email goes down and you need to contact support. And that's a true test of the provider. And a lot of people don't realise that there is a dwindling number of Australian businesses that are based in Australia with Australian operations that still do this. And that's what we stand for, and that's what we are. So that's why after 11, whatever, 11 and a half years old now, that's why we— I stay— well, not necessarily me, but that's why I'm staying in this business. That's why we're staying here. That's why we haven't sold to one of the overseas companies, because that seems a lot, right? Like, it's so much.

Tommy: There was a— yeah, and I I won't say the name, but one that I was with that was Victorian-based, and then they sold and it did change slightly.

Angelo: It does, it does. It might not be an instant change, and that's the thing. We've done acquisitions before, and I've seen, I've been in this industry my whole life.

Tommy: Yeah, so you're 29.

Angelo: 29.

Tommy: 11, so how many years, how old were you when you started?

Angelo: When did you have company? My storey in coming into this is like literally I fell into this space. I used to work part-time for another web hosting provider when I was 15, 16, doing support. And that's where I met Shane, who's now— who's my business partner in building Ventra. And he was the general manager of that company at the time, and I worked alongside him. And I thought, holy crap, I love like this industry. I kind of had a website, I dabbled in online, I dabbled in, you know, the whole reselling space. And I had a website for— actually, funny you said a podcast. I used to edit podcasts and host them but never produce them. So I used to host them, and I used to host them with a provider overseas. Exactly the same storey with an overseas provider. And then I found a local provider, um, engaged in their community because they had a great forum community. They were based in Melbourne, um, and the speeds blew me out of the water. Like, the speeds of uploading the files, like, holy crap, like, what? Why was I dealing with this? So I fell in love with the, with the whole idea of it then. I then fell in love with the company that I was hosting with, um, and their mantra. And then I was kind of like the fanboy, and they put a job out up, and I think I was in high school at this stage, and I was like, I can't do a PA job, I go to high school full-time. So I was kind of like dabbling around, then I applied for a tech support job and it was full-time, and I said, no, I can't do full-time, I want to— I'm going to do part-time, more casual. And I don't know, I must have either— apparently I— Shane reckons that the first time I came into the interview— and he's still— Shane's still active now, we're both still active in this business— he reckons the first time I came into the office, I was like, I had bathed in cologne. I was like this 15-year-old rocking up, caught the tram, like bathed in cologne. So I might have made an impact. Either that or I like fried his brain cells enough that he was like, you know what, we'll hire you. Um, and then I, and then I fell in love from then and continued to grow the business and we continued to work together. And, and I remember working, we had school holidays and I'd worked for the company now for a couple of months and we had school holidays and I worked literally every day of the school holidays full-time. And I said, I don't care what you have to do. I think I was in year 10 or year 11 at this stage. I said, I don't care what you have to do, I love this and this is what I want to So I don't want to do school. I'm like, yeah, something's better than school. So I said, so I said, all right, we'll find a way to make it work. And a business management traineeship was born. Um, and there was a big, a big change for like big European background family. Mum's a teacher, um, family of teachers. And to go, you know what, I don't want to finish my VCE, I'm going to go and pathway into IT, and this is how I'm going to do it.

Tommy: What year did you leave school?

Angelo: Year 11. Half— I'll, I'll wrap the story, but yeah, eventually went back and finished. Which is a good encouragement. Like, I would encourage anyone to like follow your passion and dream, but do something. But VC is like, you don't realise at the time, but it's, it's so important. The uni side can, can park. It depends what you're going to do. I wouldn't go to a heart surgeon that hasn't got a qualification, but you know, I just—

Tommy: it's fine.

Angelo: I've been working 25 years. I mean, I've been working. I got it. So I went to TAFE. I can cut you open, it's fine. Um, but I— yeah, you underestimate at the time how important it is, and then afterwards it's—

Josh: so, you know, what's that? What's the important bit though? So Mr. 97, the reason he's got that nickname, he 97 ENTA score. I got, I think, like in my 40-something. Tommy never finished.

Tommy: I left year 11. I thought we, we thought we could have had some relatability right now, but you went back and finished. It's very annoying.

Angelo: I, look, I went back and finished.

Josh: You would kill it now. You'd be great at Year 12.

Angelo: Yeah, I, you know, I think I wish they would teach, I wish they would teach you more practical skills. I don't know what education's like these days. Like, I, I'm so disconnected. I see news articles and, and I see like what's going on in schools. I'm like, I wonder what it would be like to go back to school now, or like relive your your VCE as— but you get to keep your knowledge, like you get to keep everything now, you get to go back in time, everything you've learned you get to keep.

Josh: I think about that all the time. I would like absolutely kill it.

Angelo: I don't know, I'd probably be a devil.

Tommy: Well, you know, the thing is, it's like, why wasn't I used—

Josh: like, you'd use Trello, you'd have it all dialled in, like, done. I couldn't even work out how to use a planner, the whole planner thing. And so did you actually get an NTAS score?

Angelo: I didn't know. I did when I went back. I did, I did. I was, uh, 79.

Josh: 79.

Angelo: I mean, I actually got told because anyway, so I'll, I'll wrap the story. So that company ended up selling, um, to a, to another company, um, that was based in Australia still. So we went from a team of like 5 people at, at the first provider to a team of 40, and that's a big change for a 16-year-old at this stage. They were based in Canberra, um, only 3 of us moved to Canberra. I relocated. Was the world of promises. I was this naive 16-year-old, like, yes, this is a world of dreams, this is fantastic, fireworks.

Tommy: Yeah, like everything They make porn in Canberra. There's a bunch of stuff in Canberra.

Angelo: Anyway, license.

Tommy: License. It's a weird, sorry, just those 3 things that we mentioned, weird that Canberra let it all happen.

Josh: George is from Canberra. Yeah, George is from Canberra.

Angelo: I'm sorry for, sorry to hear that. Anyway, it's just weird.

Tommy: It's just weird.

Josh: And so you actually relocated. What was your family saying when you were like, I'm gonna do this?

Angelo: Well, I'd already said I didn't wanna finish school and I'd been doing that for like 6 months and working full-time. So I think like the bandaid had already been torn off at that point. Um, it was a big change. I was the first, like, I mean, I, I say it now, if I, if I lived closer to home, I would love to go back and live at home, like have my laundry done. I don't want to adult anymore. I want to go back and be a kid and just do nothing. Um, no, there was a, it was a big change. It was a big change. They were really supportive. Um, I used to fly back every, every weekend. Um, and I was there for about 3 months, 3, 4 months. And, and the business management side of things that because I was doing a diploma at the time, kind of changed a little bit. That was no longer included. I was reshuffled, and the, the— pardon me— it just, it just wasn't the vibe, wasn't the same. And I said, no, no, I'm not going to do this. I don't want to be miserable— miserable— but I don't want to be upset. I'm still young. I want to go back while I can. And I said, I'm done with IT. I'm so far done with IT.

Josh: Um, was it a support role that you were doing? Like, what was the actual role?

Angelo: I was brought in um, as with the, with the promise of brand management and moving towards like BDM side and sales, but I was being funnelled through support, through back to support. And I say back to support, and I don't want to be an elitist, but like, I— we'd worked at, at the other company for so long, and I'd slowly transitioned. I was still doing support, like, as a team of 5, everyone's doing support, but we— I transitioned more into the brand management, the community engagement side, to then get thrown back to a company now 40 that has a lot more processes and structures in place and say, now you're just on the help desk. It was kind of like a bit like, oh, but I want it, you know, this is— I was working for something more.

Tommy: You were dealing with people like Mr. 97 calling, saying, help me.

Angelo: No, it's not that. I don't— I'm happy to— I love doing support now. Like, if you call us, the— on an off chance— I'm not— I'm very much not allowed to, but I get told off. But I, um, I love answering calls. Like, I answer calls now.

Josh: Are you really good at this?

Angelo: Oh yeah, I'm fantastic. No, not a chance. I am so rusty. And that's what you learn coming and doing support after not doing it every day, you learn you're so rusty. I'm like, what error? I'm like, what?

Josh: Which cPanel are you using?

Angelo: What is a cPanel? What's a window? So I'm rusty. So I'm like, it's just the only thing that I would say I would give credit to that I might have is a bit more of the— actually, no, I can't even say that. I'm not empathetic. I said I'm irrational. It's all right. I've already tried that one out.

Tommy: Do you think you need to have worked in all areas of the business to— oh, as a founder?

Angelo: Oh yeah. Oh, how— oh yeah, I would say that, I would say that anyone to, to in any leadership position would need to work in all aspects of a business to understand it. You've got to understand, I mean, you, you— to manage people in a business that is, that is multifaceted and has multiple departments, you need to understand every core aspect of the business. The only way to really get a grasp of that is to work through every part of the business. I've been, been blessed in the sense that we started— when we started Aventra, it was literally 3 of us, 4 of us, and we had to do everything. And I've always done— and I've always been used to doing everything. That's been the biggest, um, the hardest part to kind of learn as we've grown from a company of 4 to now a company of 60, is to let go and to delegate. And I'm still a control freak, and I still want to like, no, no, I want to do it, I want to do everything, I want to be in control of everything, I want to be operational. Um, that's been the biggest challenge because, yeah, I, I come from that background of being so hands-on that it is so difficult to then go and be more holistic and not so much hands-on.

Tommy: Still a challenge at 60 people. Yeah. And so I think that for me is in a chance. Yeah, for you personally. Yeah, because I think that sort of if there's 3 of you and then that sort of initial sort of level up in terms of how big the team is, is that the hardest bit, do you think, to sort of grow out and expand the team from just being a couple of people there in your own heads, you know each other really well and you know how everything works, to then work out, uh, how do we fucking get other people involved?

Angelo: That's the— that's been the biggest thing. The biggest thing for me, and I— and I— we have a great team of people that work for us, but it's also the passion. It's so hard to find people who are so passionate, not even just about the hosting space, but passionate about the business as a sense. Which is why you walk around this office and it's so like relaxed, and there's so many facilities that— I don't want to say facilities, I'm trying to perk is the word I use. It says like the lunch, the breakfast, the, you know, the gym, the rec area and all that, because it's about fostering a passion for the business and about fostering a true, a true love for the business. That is the hardest part. That is the hardest part. That's been the hardest part. As you, as you start to grow, it's really hard and it gets difficult and more challenging to foster that and find that in people. So that's probably been the biggest, the biggest change in terms of it's gone from from me necessarily, not to, uh, loosely speaking, managing customers to managing people internally.

Tommy: Now it's a whole new task in itself. It's a new skill set you're needing to develop. You've spent all your time on the ground doing the thing, and then you're like, now I've got to learn this whole other—

Angelo: learn management thing. Yeah, like learn to manage people.

Josh: And that's the—

Angelo: and I've always, you know, I've always respected mentors in the industry, and in industry and in business overall, and looked at people. But I don't come from a— apart from running a business, I don't have a a business degree, I don't come from a finance background, you know, I don't have any of those, you know, those, those— most of what we're doing, I'm already— we're already doing all of that. It's just putting the words to it. So you've had to learn it on the job is what I'm trying to say. You have to learn, learn it as you go. And the hardest part is, I know it sounds so, so silly to say fake it till you make it, but when you've— when you're speaking with someone about a, you know, a a grievance issue that you've never dealt with before as a, as a boss and as a manager and as an owner of a company that's managing a team of people. If you've never done that before and you've got no basis, you kind of have to— if to be consoling to someone, you have to convince them that you know what you're doing. And that is the, the strangest part, is kind of going, I really don't know what I'm doing. I've got to convince you that I know what I'm doing. And then in the back of my mind going, but am I doing the right thing? So that, that, yeah, that is definitely, it's a completely different task. And if you don't have a background in it or an education in it or, you know, any principles that kind of define it, it's a lot of reading and it's a lot of learning and it's a lot of mistakes.

Josh: And so being in Canberra, 3 months in.

Angelo: 3 months in.

Josh: How do you make the decision to change paths? How do you make the decision to like, you've moved there, you've told all your mates, you've told your family, and now things are changing. Was that hard?

Angelo: That was probably the biggest thing, as you know. I had a lot of naysayers, um, that would be like, uh, you know, this is a bad idea, don't do it, it's gonna— and that was the biggest thing, worrying about people going, I told you so, you shouldn't have done it. And a lot of my mates at that point, because it was probably the first— when I left Origin, it was this— I think it was the start of Year 11. So a lot of my mates by that point had already finished, they were in Year 12, we're already— everyone was in Year 12. And I knew that I wanted— I knew I had to go back to school because I had nothing out. I mean, I could have done other things, but primarily my parents were kind of like, and family was like, you should go back to school. You're not enjoying it. This, this is really something that, you know, as in school's a standard, as in it's, it's, it's kind of the thing you fall back to. So I'd rather you go back to school than do nothing. Um, and I was a bit lost at the time, and I'm like, no, I don't want to ever work in IT again. I had a— at the time, I still had a passion, still do have a passion for commercial radio. I love commercial radio. I studied commercial radio, never finished technically my, uh, my postgraduate in arts, uh, at Swinburne, which now doesn't run anymore, so I can no longer finish it. Um, thanks for that, Swinburne.

Tommy: Um, Josh has a great relationship with Commercial Radio Australia.

Angelo: I know you have.

Josh: Yeah, we're all, we're all fine. We're all good.

Angelo: We both have a radio background, a digital radio.

Josh: Yeah.

Angelo: So I, I I said, I'm done with IT. So I went and finished school. Um, I didn't really— I think Shane and everyone else who'd moved was slowly dwindling from the other company, uh, and they moved back to Melbourne. Um, and essentially I just got to the end of my Year 12. I had to repeat Year 11, so I went to a new school. I was like, no, I'm not going to doing this with, with, uh— so I went from a— I went from a Catholic all-boys school, St. Bernard's, in, in Essendon, um, to Footscray City. Which I think is now called, uh, I think it's merged with another school, and then Footscray. And so I went from like a semi— I say semi-private, but Catholic boys' school— to like a public school. And it was a— that was just a mine. Like, that was crazy. Um, and so I went back, I finished my— repeated my year 11, finished my year 12, or started to finish my year 12, got halfway through year 12. Um, and then Shane reaches out to me and says, look, we're crazy enough to, to want to do this again. We want to— it was probably, I would say, to oversimplify it, it was probably born out of vendetta and not jealousy, but a vendetta to get back and go, you know what, screw the company that, that bought us, that made— well, didn't buy us, but bought them, promised us the world and didn't deliver. Screw them, we're going to beat them at their own game.

Josh: We're going to be like Ninja Turtles, which is exactly Shane. Yes, he loves it.

Tommy: Can I just say, I walked past that office and I didn't see— all I could see was some Ninja Turtle stuff, TVs. And I said to Caitlin, is this the kids' room? And then I realised Shane was in there.

Angelo: It is the kids' room. It is definitely the kids' room.

Tommy: And then I overcompensated by saying, my kids would ruin this room. But there's a lot of toys and stuff.

Angelo: There's a lot of toys.

Josh: Leonardo, what's his name?

Angelo: Leonardo Raphael.

Josh: Which is the purple one.

Angelo: Raphael. Oh, now you put me on the spot.

Tommy: Let's go get Shane.

Angelo: Raphael.

Josh: Shane's really cheesy.

Tommy: What is he love? Ninja Turtles, obviously.

Angelo: No, he doesn't. No, he was just browsing. He was on Pinterest. What can I decorate my office?

Tommy: Uh, Wish.

Angelo: No, he loves turtles. He does. He loves turtles.

Josh: And so he says— and, and by the way, we're doing Fat Fridays. Can we get into the pies? So you're not doing Fat Fridays? You're doing Veggie Fridays?

Tommy: No, I support it. I've been— I've been— I said to you before, I've been that guy. I've, um, been smashing greens and Chinese lean and maize.

Josh: 97, what, so Caitlin gave us a list of how many pies. There's like 40 pies.

Tommy: There were heaps on there.

Josh: Where are they from?

Angelo: They're from a local pie shop actually in, I say down the road, in Pakenham.

Tommy: Yeah, which you keep in business.

Angelo: I used to pick up orders and I think they still ask, where's Angelo? Like, how's Angelo? I don't pick up orders anymore, but.

Tommy: So what do you get? How many pies do you reckon got delivered delivered today. It's 50, 60 or something more.

Josh: Yeah, because you can order two or multiple.

Angelo: You're free.

Josh: Really? Really?

Angelo: No, it's a local pie shop in Pakenham, in Lakeside. Um, their name— it's not Pie Minister, it used to be called Pie and Mighty. Pie and Mighty.

Tommy: That's such a good name.

Josh: So this one, what have I got?

Angelo: You've got the Mexican one.

Josh: This is great.

Angelo: Mexican salsa sour cream pie. Yeah, it's good. And I'm lactose intolerant. Really? So it's not good for me.

Josh: Do you know Mexican Cantina down the road is my favourite Mexican establishment.

Angelo: Really?

Josh: But I thought that you would know it, but if you don't, I do like it.

Angelo: I know, I know.

Josh: Okay, rebound court.

Angelo: Yeah, I know where it is.

Josh: I did their community management back in the day. It was really— I was such a fan that they just gave me a bunch of free food and I took photos and did their Facebook.

Angelo: And, um, it's not bad.

Tommy: Uh, nice. What have I got?

Angelo: You've got the chicken parma pie. Yeah, here we go.

Tommy: I mean, what I like is that he's, he's making up for taking our server down by knowing the kind of pies that you and I appreciate. So, um, and so what did George get, by the way? Mr. 97?

Angelo: Uh, give me a second. I think he's— I've got a chicken and avocado, and then the other one, bacon, cheese, and tomato.

Josh: Great.

Tommy: I mean, just, just quickly, should avocado be heated?

Angelo: It gets bitter.

Tommy: I don't know, it's a big question here at Avenger.

Angelo: Pineapple should go on pizzas.

Josh: That's your commercial training, week 1. Yeah, week 1. All right, so I'm gonna— I'm just gonna take a bite. Tell us more. You're a great storyteller. I reckon you'd be— I mean, I could imagine you doing radio.

Angelo: I didn't want to do on-air. I wanted to do production. Well, I actually wanted to do imaging. Imaging? I wanted to do—

Josh: yeah, do you want to do the daily talk shows imaging?

Tommy: That'd be nice. You got any time?

Angelo: Look, a long time since I've used Pro Tools or Audition, but, um, it's like a bike, isn't it? Like, you can just pick it up again. Yeah, I'm sure.

Josh: Just like CPAP.

Tommy: That is so good. Chicken parma pie for the weekend.

Angelo: What did you pick for me?

Josh: So you got green, so you're doing some low-carb thing.

Angelo: I'm trying, look, you have a second bowl.

Tommy: Is this brand damaging anything on camera?

Angelo: It's in a bowl, which I have a pet hate for bowls, but anyway.

Josh: Really? What does that, what do you mean?

Angelo: I just don't like bowls.

Josh: Really? How do you eat ice cream?

Angelo: I don't.

Tommy: No, no, currently. No, out of the tub. Yeah, out of the tub.

Josh: What is your issue with bowls?

Angelo: Honestly, honestly, this is, it's like Yeah, going that deep. They don't stack the dish in the dishwasher really well. That's like seriously my issue with that.

Tommy: Oh, it's such a nuisance. You don't want to have to—

Angelo: So you take like 3 rungs where you could put plates and then you can't stack them too closely because they shadow, which is a term, I don't know if you know, if dishes don't wash properly and they're covered by the dishes, it's shadowing. That's another passion of mine is dishwasher stacking.

Josh: Well, I always just thought I was an idiot, but so bowls, they're not designed for dishwasher stacking.

Angelo: No, you don't need bowls. Bowls just don't, shouldn't exist. Honestly.

Josh: What about burrito bowls?

Tommy: No, no.

Josh: That's low carb.

Tommy: You've got a kid. I just saw some photos.

Angelo: No, it's not my kid, it's my nephew. Yes, it's my nephew.

Tommy: Mate, when you have— are you gonna have kids?

Angelo: I am gonna have a kid. Yeah, we're— it's not officially known, but we're in the process of an embryo creation and surrogacy journey in America. I hate that word journey. I'm so sick of like doing this like Contiki tour with surrogacy agencies in the States and around the world, and they will talk about the journey. If I have to hear that word again, I'm gonna like throw something out the window. But yeah, we're in the process of that. Amazing.

Josh: We hope—

Tommy: I want bowls at the time that the kid comes.

Angelo: Beep, pardon?

Tommy: I want everything bowls. I want everything in a bowl for my kid. He can't do plates. Plates are annoying for him.

Josh: Yeah, I mean—

Tommy: Tips on the sides. Sorry, I just had to give some bowl— I had to give bowls some love.

Angelo: Give it some love.

Tommy: No, I've got a dog. I've got pretty much a dog, a kid.

Angelo: But I'm saying if you have a dog, then the plates don't matter. Because if the food goes everywhere, the dogs just—

Tommy: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: No, I agree with that. I'm all for this.

Tommy: All right, Josh, you take a bite.

Josh: I'm gonna bite, but I want to also hear how you and Shane went up, how the vendetta went.

Angelo: It's still going.

Josh: But let's be honest, you don't need to eat at all during this because those greens—

Tommy: I reckon there's no calories in them, so you can just fast today.

Angelo: Just have a glass.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so how old was Shane when he was like approaching you? Was it sort of weird having like a fairly older—

Angelo: So you insulted him with the Ninja Turtles.

Josh: Didn't you say he was like 40 or something?

Angelo: No, he's not 40, he's 9 years older than me.

Josh: Okay, all right, sure.

Angelo: Okay, so the thing that is when I was working—

Josh: He was more established than you in the industry.

Angelo: I think he, yeah, more established in the industry, more established as a per— like I say a mentor and that's someone I look up like I look up to him. He's only 9 years, but he comes from a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of worldly experience.

Josh: 9 years makes him 38. That's only 2 years off 40. I just wanna defend my position of saying 40. I just rounded up. I don't care.

Angelo: I highlight the age quite often. The age gap. I used to hate the whole age gap, but now I love it 'cause I feel younger and better. I'm not even 30 yet. You're in your 30s and yeah.

Tommy: It's all downhill, bro.

Angelo: So yeah, that's what I've been told, so I'm looking forward to it. That's, that's why I'm getting on the greens early and the bowls and the bowls. Wow, what good content. Um, thank God it was radio imaging, not radio production, or that would have been a disaster. Um, so he rings me and we— and, and he says, you want to do this again?

Tommy: And I was like, absolutely not.

Angelo: I was like, absolutely not, never again. I said, you know what, He goes, I need someone I can trust. I need someone I can trust, someone I know will work well, someone who knows the industry. I need a right-hand man, someone to help this business and help grow this business. I know you know what you're doing. Still don't know what I'm doing. See, fake it till you make it. You know what you're doing. You, you, you have a passion for it. You're good with customers. I need, I need someone I can trust. Do you want to do this? And I said yes, but I want to finish my— because I was like literally towards the end of my year 12. I said yeah, but I want to finish my year 12. He said fine. You can have the position, this can be yours, and you can— and we can start the business. And I mean, he— they'd been running— technically I say co-founder, but they— I think they were like 6 months when, when I started, like officially 6 months old business. Um, he said you can come on and, and be a co-founder and, and whatnot, but you have to get over 80 on your INTA. I've got 79.

Tommy: Oh no, round it up, Shane, come on.

Angelo: I was like, yeah, so obviously I was like, I demand— I just talked my way into it. I said, no, it was 80. I think now he knows It was '79. So anyway, so that happened, um, and at the same time it was, it was still, it was— I don't want to say light work because there's a lot of work, but I was still had the passion in radio. And I said, I don't want to do what I did last time, and which is focus solely on one thing for it to— I want to put my— don't want to put all my eggs in one basket.

Josh: What did that dream look like, the radio dream? What was your ultimate employer?

Angelo: Ultimate employer? You're gonna laugh at this. My ultimate employer at the time They weren't SCA, they were just Australia. It was my ultimate employer because I had a lot of respect for Matt Nicolich for his imaging work. So I wanted to—

Josh: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Angelo: So I wanted to work, um, I wanted to work at Australia.

Josh: Yeah, great. Um, and then he's smashing it at Podcast One now. Yeah, he's all those guys.

Angelo: So, um, sorry, so that was my ultimate desire. Yeah. So I studied, so I was still studying. I say studying very loosely. I, I think if, um Um, if Jim is watching from, from Toowoomba, was watching this, like, you never like came to anything. Like, you can't hear you say you were studying. You never like turned up to classes, uh, because I was working and running a business. Yeah.

Tommy: Um, you still have a HECS debt?

Angelo: I paid it off.

Josh: I got that before you got the Vespa, or—

Angelo: ah, no, that's great. The celebration for the— for the— um, I was still withholding like my HECS debt, like, because it was back like I used to I used to do— I think I was doing payroll, I had the wrong settings set, and then our accountant was like, you get a huge tax refund. I was like, cool. He's like, he's like, but it's because you're withholding for hex. He's like, I'm like, it's good. He goes, no, it's Bogan economics. You don't want that. It's better in your pocket first rather than getting it at the end of the year.

Josh: Um, you say Bogan economics, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I've done a lot of that. My Uber Eats is a lot of Bogan economics.

Angelo: That's what his phrase was. I was like, oh, I was like, well, at least that way I don't spend the money. I like getting a surprise end of the year. Now I get it. Now I get a tax bill at the end of the year. It's never exciting. Um, so yeah, so, so I had to pay the HECS debt off. Um, so I was studying— I was using that term loosely— and, and, um, working. And I got to the point where I literally had one more assignment to go at Swinburne, and it was the final, and it was a placement, and it was also regional placement. So I came to the point, to surmise it, was that it was either thanks Ventra thanks for the memories and see you later, I'm going to pursue this commercial radio dream, or I put that on hold, pause, whatever, and focus on Ventra because they— I couldn't do both.

Josh: What was the regional? So, uh, Tommy worked at Shepparton, he was an announcer.

Angelo: It wasn't Shepparton. Oh, I— now you're testing my memory. It wasn't— I think it might have been— no, it was a— I think it was an ACE Network station.

Tommy: Warrnambool.

Angelo: It might have been Warrnambool.

Tommy: I think it might be.

Angelo: Yeah, yeah, it was a—

Josh: it was a—

Angelo: it was anyway, and I had a great choice though.

Josh: Look, yeah, I mean, but also the amount of banter that we could have on a week, like between radio, IT. Yeah, this is— I'm digging this.

Angelo: Go on, go on.

Tommy: Are you asking for a job?

Angelo: Yeah, no, just come.

Josh: I actually just want a banter buddy. That's what it is, like catch.

Angelo: I mean, you can record the podcast here anytime you want, it's fine. I won't, I won't, I won't, uh, I will break the lens again. But you can— guys can record anytime you want here, have your pies. I've got to try dinner. You got to do it like— we don't do— we do cook it, we do cooking. Janine and, and Mel and Nat in the kitchen do, um, during the week, Monday to Thursday. We always try to do a team, team dinner, a team lunch where everyone's together on a Friday. It doesn't really work out that way because we've still got people answering calls and, you know, this team's kind of split and we've run out of space in the kitchen. We can't have everyone together, have to like set up a trestle table to have everyone sitting Um, but it's important for us on a Friday, but we will eventually do a— do the kitchen on a Friday. But my point is you have to come in during the week and do a great fat during the weekday.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, definitely the cooked food. I'll be here Monday to Friday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can't get rid of him. The studio that you're setting up, if you don't like, we're happy to lease out of there. Um, and so you're at a crossroads. You have to decide between going regional and going down the path of radio or doing Ventura. Was it an easy decision?

Angelo: It wasn't, it wasn't an easy decision. It was, I think it was the right decision. I love what I do, I love what I do now. I always think, oh, you know, I'd be, you know, be silly for me to say I don't think of what could have been. And I kind of got discouraged a lot from the whole regional, and I mean, maybe I am an elitist, but I'm kind of like, I don't want to do, like, I don't want to do the regional deluge. Like, I don't—

Josh: Are you a good employee, do you think?

Angelo: Probably not.

Tommy: It's not for everyone.

Angelo: Probably not now. Like, and I'm like, I really like being my own boss. I don't really know if I could do— And there's a couple of stints that I did in between, as in while Ventra and studying and working somewhere else as well in IT, in IT. And I was like— And I think that kind of came together to the, to the ultimate decision, was like, I don't think, I don't think I could work for somebody. Yeah, I really think I couldn't I couldn't— yeah, I couldn't. I don't take direction well. I really don't.

Tommy: All the set stuff, like flexibility and just being able to sort of run your own race, you know, do it. You— I, I just love— I was the same when I was working. And so you had your structure. The closest thing was radio that you did sort of finish and you could go off and do and live a life. And— but yeah, that was the closest. I, I'd be a shit employee.

Angelo: It's different.

Tommy: It's—

Angelo: look, it's got its— it's got its benefits in being a boss and having the flexibility, but it's also the fact that you could literally, I think, as an employee, go home, switch off, and you don't have to worry. That kind of is the, the grass is greener on the other side.

Tommy: What we always, we always have this, that like, uh, what's the job you'd pick? I know it's probably Cliff U. Yeah, in the radio space. But what's the job you pick when everything gets a bit too much pressure and you're feeling a bit down? As someone who's founded a business and it's, you know, grown, what's the job that you would do? Do I drive past a cop? I'm like, I reckon I'll be a good cop. I reckon I wouldn't mind that. I just, I looked into it, 10 weeks and you'll leave. Not bad. That's really—

Josh: yeah, mate.

Angelo: Actually, I get unlimited annual leave.

Tommy: But you know, that 10 weeks, you're like, wow, 10 weeks.

Josh: What would I do with that?

Angelo: What would I do? I've never thought about that. Well, that's good. I think I have time to think about that. No, I, I'm trying to think now. Now you put me on the spot. What would I do? What would be the ideal job? I would— it's ironic, like I say, I don't want to work in IT, but I probably— my ideal job I would love to spend— maybe, okay, can I spend a week, 2 weeks maybe?

Josh: Yeah, sure.

Angelo: Do I have to like pay? I'd love to spend 2 weeks at Google.

Josh: Oh yeah?

Angelo: Yeah.

Josh: In what department?

Angelo: I don't care, I just want at google.com. I just want to add google.com address.

Josh: I think it's staff.google.com.

Angelo: Oh really?

Josh: Okay, I'm so sorry.

Tommy: Let's just shoot out a random stephanie@google.com. Yeah, you'll get someone. Yeah, I reckon you'll get someone. What's crazy is like, I think about my parents and, you know, your family and the generations before them, the businesses that were in existence then, like mum and dad creating a video production company and a podcast wasn't available to them like it is for us today. This business that you're a part of, like for our parents, what was— was this around? Like when did this hosting and all the website stuff, like, to the accessibility that it is today?

Angelo: It probably exploded. I would say accessibility-wise, probably about— it's getting more and more accessible every day, like every, every year, every day. Um, explosion-wise was probably about 12 years ago, 12, 14 years ago. And that was, it was primarily from the US market. I think it was that when GoDaddy was huge. And I think it was, it wasn't so much about the web hosting. And I think it's the key is not to sell it as it's meant to be like a web package. GoDaddy were big on the domains, um, when they did their advertising in their huge, huge campaigns, um, back 15 years ago. I think it was 15. Now I'm gonna have to check.

Josh: It was when like, um, like the podcasting stuff even sort of started, like Dignation. I don't know if you remember, like those podcasts would always be advertising them.

Angelo: Yes, yes, correct. Yep, yeah, that was the explosion. I think it was about getting a domain name and about getting your, you know, yourname.com .com or something like that. Um, then it kind of evolved from there, and, and I, I think it's going to happen again, and the next wave and reiteration of, you know, online is going to happen again. What it looks like, I don't know. Um, social media is huge. Like, I feel, I feel old. You say 30, I feel old. Like, when people are talking about TikTok— and don't tell me you're on TikTok.

Josh: Tell me he's on TikTok. Yeah, he's got his hat backwards.

Tommy: Of course.

Josh: He went viral.

Angelo: So you've got to learn what it is.

Tommy: What do you think for the— what do you think, like, our kids and their kids, what the new thing— I mean, if we knew the answer, we'd probably be quite rich, but understanding what will be the jobs that they have that weren't in our mind at this time.

Angelo: Space. Something in space.

Tommy: Do you think hovering, hovercraft, some—

Josh: the hosting thing, like, I guess cloud, like, it's cloud and hosting. Interchangeable. Like, it feels like there was a separation, but now it's a little bit more sort of cloud.

Angelo: The term cloud is so undefined, and it's kind of beginning a little bit better and a little bit more like integrated, you said. But it was so— anything could be cloud, like anything web-based could be cloud. And that whole vision of, of cloud is, is changing. I think the reason you say it's integrating and kind of amalgamating together is because it's just becoming generally adopted as the word for the internet is the cloud. And, you know, anything that's not local is, is the cloud.

Tommy: Apple did well jumping on to make iCloud.

Josh: Well, at least that's a consumer thing.

Tommy: To own the branding of the word cloud.

Josh: Yeah, which I think is a very consumer thing. I mean, like Amazon obviously with their AWS and all that sort of thing is— AWS what? Like, is that the big—

Angelo: Amazon Web Services.

Tommy: Ah, yeah.

Josh: Is that the, uh, from a competition point of view with Ventra, is that a consideration? Like, is that like the Amazon's No, no, no, no, no.

Angelo: People say, oh, how do you, how do you feel about the, the, you know, the— when, when Google Cloud GCP launched, Google Cloud Platform launched in Sydney, people are like, how do you feel about Google coming to Sydney? And it's— I kind of think of it as a complementary service because we— that is so bespoke in the sense that you can set up stuff so bespoke and so complex that it's not a commodity, whereas fundamentally what, what Ventra Venture IP Australia sells is commodity and web, and it's meant to be a web package. So you don't need to— I mean, in your, in your instance where you look at some of our products, there is some overlap to the cloud versus using us. The differentiator is that local business, local support, etc., whatnot, local company, local— that you can— that's the selling point. But in terms of our actual bread and butter, our domain names and web hosting is on a— it's a parallel product to stuff that you can buy on GCP or AWS.

Tommy: Just, um, for me to be relatable in tech talk time with you boys, Um, it's like a pie and a sausage roll.

Angelo: Very tasty together.

Tommy: We were talking about WikiLeaks once, and I then went on to WikiLeaks, and then I saw something and was like, um, where are the Amazon server locations? And then it was like leaked information. And then I was in— I'd pressed on this link, and then I'm looking at this suburb outside of Sydney, and someone had leaked the exact location of the Amazon. Yeah, I just went on that. Next minute I'm there, and I was driving a Tesla.

Josh: I didn't know how I got there.

Tommy: It'd been days. I was on drugs. And, um, I broke in. No, but in terms of like, that's just—

Josh: there's no question.

Tommy: No, no, I was going to say, leaking the information about where a server location is somewhere on something like WikiLeaks for Amazon, is that a big deal?

Angelo: It is a big deal because Amazon and AWS power a lot of, a lot of critical infrastructure in terms of like government, military, banking. Um, so knowing it is kind of— I mean, it's, it's part of the puzzle in terms of orchestrating an attack, to hypothetical.

Tommy: Well, I tried one, it didn't work.

Angelo: It didn't work. It's only part of it. There's a lot more complexities in it because there is the distribution of data. But essentially, fundamentally, if you could hit all Amazon sites, as an example— Amazon, Google, whatever— all published sites in one go, you would take down a big part of the internet. Doing that is virtually impossible. You've got more luck like going to the bottom of the ocean and cutting cutting fibre cables to disconnect a country from the, from the internet. You've got more luck doing that than you do of simultaneously hitting all these sites.

Tommy: Sorry, quick pause. There is actually internet cables at the bottom of the ocean?

Josh: Yes. How do you think it works? What do you think, Wi-Fi between countries?

Tommy: Oh, you should be— sorry, wise guy. It's like most people wouldn't even understand that. Yeah, think about the length of those cords underneath. Do sharks bite them?

Angelo: Yes, sharks. Them.

Josh: Do they really?

Angelo: They do, they do, they snap.

Tommy: So who's interested now?

Josh: Oh yeah, no, I'm very interested.

Angelo: Do you own a shark? Um, yeah, who laid them?

Tommy: Who laid them?

Angelo: Um, different companies. Uh, the original ones that were, were laid that were connected to Australia was primarily laid by Telstra. Um, and now you've got private companies. There's some ASX-listed companies. I know that, um, TPG own a couple of cables. There's a Superloop own a couple of cables. They're laying them now. Pipe Network, which is all TPG.

Tommy: Sorry, laying cables.

Angelo: George got it.

Tommy: TBG are laying cables. Anyway, dropping the kids off to the pool.

Angelo: Okay, I get it.

Tommy: Anyway, but it's a pretty interesting fact. It is.

Angelo: Look, I— it's, it's interesting to think that they go all that way and like, from the distance, think of it like Australia to America. They go all that way and literally like, what are they, like 200 milliseconds to get from one end to the other with a beam of light? Because essentially it's all it is, is a beam of light from one— because it's, it's a fibre cable. It's essentially light through a, through a cable. But the cable's like— the fibre cable is like— I could probably get— got an example here, but they're like super thin. But then these cables are like multiple strands of fibre and then bundled together with insulation and then weights. So that cable's actually like this big, like probably like this big, if not bigger. Um, and there's a couple of companies that do the, the, the laying. Um, there's only— I think there's only— I, I mean, this is out of my depth, so this is probably not the— I can give you— you want to have an interview with someone who does fibre across cross-country fiber? I'll get that for you. I can organise Um, I would say that there is probably about 3 or 4 companies that primarily do it in terms of actually laying the contract, the, the fibre itself. They've got boats, they've got rolls of cable, and there's repeaters on them. Um, and then there's locator beacons so that when, if there is a snap or a break or a shark bites it or it snags, um, and breaks, they can then locate them and rejoin them, essentially, which happens, which does happen.

Tommy: I reckon majority of people people that use the internet wouldn't understand that or never thought about—

Josh: Be a great documentary, 100%.

Tommy: And so when we complain about— you're our internet specialist, uh, Angela.

Josh: Thanks.

Angelo: When, um, wrap it up.

Tommy: Um, when we talk about shit internet in Australia, like, is it, is it merit to that, like, we're backwards in our technology, um, Elon Musk talking about how he could solve Australia's internet problems, like Sky, Skylink.

Angelo: I, I, without getting too in depth in, into politics or anything, I think that the whole, like, the whole NBN debacle was great in, in, in its inception, and then it just became a political hamble, uh, and that's where it all fell apart. Um, and there's a lot of interest in protecting a lot of Telstra's assets there, and I don't know, there's a lot, like, you could, you could fall into the rabbit hole of a lot of reading of it, but it's our internet is pretty pathetic and pretty poor. The other thing that is really difficult for people to grasp when they talk about it is the actual land mass of Australia. Like, you talk— you go to Singapore and you get gigabit speeds. Like, it's— I remember I was there a couple years ago and they were advertising, um, StarHub, I think it was, advertising gigabit ethernet for like $40 to your apartment. But you gotta think, like, Singapore's like this big. Look, to lay, to lay fibre around that country is pretty— I mean, great, aside from the political government movement and whatnot that you've got to get through, it's actually quite cost-effective. To lay fibre across Australia is really expensive, really, really expensive, and a lot of investment. It's what we should have done. It's what Australia should have done, is fibre everywhere, um, because it's future-proof. But yes, the whole internet debacle, the whole shit internet in Australia, comes from the fact that it was just a political handball and the fact that people just don't understand it. And people don't understand the benefits of having you know, X technology over Y technology. And why X, you know, X technology might cost 3 times more but give you 10 times more life or 10 times more scalability in the future. A lot of people don't see that and understand that. And I think that's where it became a bit of a political gamble to repeat it. Um, but yeah, it is, it is in a state. It's not—

Josh: I've never—

Angelo: I'm fortunate enough to never have been in living or, um, in, in how— in a house, or maybe because I pick properties and that, that have the infrastructure around. But I— when people complain about really slow internet speed. I've kind of been lucky where I kind of have picked places to live or build, um, that have good facility, good infrastructure, and have like fibre to the building or fibre to the— you know, in this street here we've got a— there's fibre here, um, in this street that we, we have that goes back. It's a Telstra fiber, it's owned by Telstra. No one else can hop it, you have to go through Telstra to use it, um, but it's in the street. So it's something that, that I think I've been— I'm kind of like, when I hear storeys about people saying, oh God, maintenance is so and ME/N is so horrible. I've kind of been like, but it's fine for me because I've kind of picked those places.

Tommy: I mean, it's amazing. Like, the, the— if there was no internet, there's no Venture IP, right? Is that—

Josh: yeah, there's a lot of—

Tommy: there's no, there's no podcast, there's no podcast, like there's no distribution.

Angelo: Could you imagine having no internet, like going to like a realm where— I think there's a show about this, going to a realm with Black Mirror. Yeah, I think it's Black Mirror. I think it's Black Mirror. I think it's Black Mirror, um, going to like a realm where the internet is just turned off. How would we survive?

Tommy: Majority businesses, like, think about all— even organising of logistics for transport of food, or like software.

Angelo: Like, dude, yeah, I mean, aside from the fact that your credit cards would stop working and everything else like would stop working, so you— it would be a cash economy.

Tommy: Like, we could still call the support team, they're 24 hours.

Angelo: Yeah, just knock on the door. Can't get in because the door Well, the building's not connected to any security system because it's all disconnected. Yeah, the internet doesn't exist anymore, which is kind of like highlights the, the dependence on the, on the internet that we've come to kind of grow accustomed to and got and grow used to, which is why it's so important that, hey, we get the infrastructure right, but we also get policy development right. Um, so there's a lot, a lot of people don't realise what's going on a lot in, in policy development, even on the internet as a whole, on domain names, on, on legislation. Um, worldwide. And it's, and it's kind of like the, the internet and technology has evolved so quickly, which is always the case. And the legal system and, um, yeah, I suppose like to think about the Christchurch, what happened with Christchurch and Facebook and the live streaming of all that, like that evolved. The internet has evolved so, so quickly that policy development is so far behind and lagging so far behind. And I'm trying to think of of a particular word, and it's just casey at the moment. Um, but yeah, it's so far behind. And it's about now we need to, as an internet community worldwide, we need to make sure that our policy that we develop is not just a knee-jerk reaction. It's actually a policy that's sustainable and not just a knee-jerk reaction to, to flash horrible social happenings in the world. Well, I think so. Yeah, this is all the complexities when you, you hop on your internet, you on your— you hop on your computer, go to your, you know, your porn hub or whatever, and go and use your Gmail, uh, go use your email and your internet. You don't think about all this stuff in the back end, in the background that's going on. Yeah, from the technical—

Josh: it'd be a real headfuck if you did. Every time you went on to porn, you have to think about like the— like, it's going through the fibre right now. Like, it's pretty outrageous, isn't it?

Angelo: I mean, really, that'd be a real turn-on.

Josh: Yeah, for the right woman.

Tommy: The, um, where you look at the Congress getting together for the Facebook, uh, conversation, or like the privacy things that went down with Facebook. Yeah, they're all late 70s and having— they look so confused about what is even Facebook, well, how's it all work. Like, and so it's not a dig at their age, it's a, it's a different generation of an understanding because I don't get it, and I'm 30 and, you know, grown up with the internet. And so the point around policy, how's it being formed by people that have no understanding of what it even does or is? Well, that's—

Angelo: there's no simple answer. It's being formed by both technical experts and people who have interests in policy development, but there's also a lot of, a lot of opinions, and there's also a lot of, you know, political— I don't say political interests, but a lot of interests that people would want to protect. But the scary thing to think about is, I mean, I know that, that Russia and China are working on their own, you know, their own— that they've got a lot of concerns with policy development of the internet and controlling internet and whatnot. But the scary part to think about is, as a society, we use a browser that primarily— that is a Google browser. We are so reliant on Facebook. That's what we should be scared of. We shouldn't be scared of the, the, the, the policy We should be scared of companies, of US— well, not— now I'm throwing hyperbole around, but scared— like, think about the fact that the US companies— and the US will do everything to protect it because they're US companies and they want the— it's in the interest— but controlling so much data and controlling so much conversation around internet and controlling so much, that's where the concern lay. And I don't know how you split that up on a global level or how you, you diversify it or remove that kind of commercial interest. Um, but it's a real concern. Like, you don't really think about how much of the internet— how much of the internet is actually— not— I don't— the term owned is wrong, but how much of the internet policy and how much of the, the development of policy in instant is actually owned by organisations and companies with commercial interests.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: How are you as a consumer? Do you go all in on being on one ecosystem, or do you diversify?

Angelo: If you want to pass over my tinfoil hat, are you talking about like, uh, no, I I don't want to be a part of the crowd.

Josh: It's like, yeah, no, so I'm like, I use like this browser, I've developed my own browser.

Angelo: I know people like that. I'm not, that's why I joke about the tinfoil hat. I'm kind of like—

Josh: I mean, you've got a Google Home.

Angelo: My God, my life is so boring. Like if you want to spy on me, Jesus Christ, you'll see photos, go on my Instagram, you'll see photos of my dog, see alcohol, food. It's not even exciting food.

Tommy: Boring. Then what are the people that say, oh, I don't know about that? Like, what are they—

Angelo: but then I don't think they're hiding anything. I just want to prove— yeah, but I don't think they're actually hiding. I think there's a genuine concern. I'm just not overly vocal. So no, I don't develop— I, I'm pro, like, I love Google, but I'm still consciously aware of how, you know, potential— I don't say bad they are, but how potentially bad they are. And they happen, and they have— I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they have the potential to be bad, but they're not. But under all of it, like, there's a lot of data. Like, there was a report released that Google knows more about you than, you know, government, than security agencies.

Josh: Yeah.

Angelo: Australian security agencies know about their own people that Google knows more about them, or Apple, or, you know, or any of those companies. I— my life's boring. I don't, you know, I'm conscious of it. I'm not very vocal about, you know, You know, secure your browser, use, you know, incognito, don't send ad. I love, I love ads. I actually love ad tracking. I love, I think it's, I think I'm one of those few people that, um, I hate ads but also love ads in the sense that I love, I don't have an ad blocker. I never use ad blockers. I love my ads and I like my ads because they're normally targeted towards me and that's what I like. I like targeted advertising. I like seeing, going, oh, this is actually really interesting, rather than seeing, you know, and that's the difference between using something like watching a video on YouTube. Full disclosure, I have YouTube Premium, so I think that I'm very similar.

Josh: I don't use an ad blocker, but I have YouTube Premium, and the pre-roll is the most annoying, I reckon, out of the— I find—

Angelo: see, this is the thing I find, like, if I'm watching 10Play as an example, their pre-roll is so boring because it's just generic shit. Whereas if I watch a YouTube pre-roll, and it's— I don't because it's premium, but if I was to watch it on my profile, it's targeted towards me. Yeah, all this ads targeted, they're actually quite engaging, quite interesting. So I'm probably different in the sense that I'm not general consumer that I actually like advertising. So that's probably why my opinion is a little bit swayed in that I don't really— I'm not really overly worried about it. I'm more worried about control of state. I would say my concern would be more about state control, as in government control, or foreign state bodies with internet control or their policy development or their influence, and more about companies and their influence from a commercial perspective. Yeah, so I'm neither here nor there. But yeah, I love my Google It does everything.

Josh: Having built a business now and having—

Angelo: We don't sell your data. So I just wanna say that.

Josh: From an employee, put like you've got so many employees and I guess that sort of vision of like sticking it to the man or like doing it better, what sort of empathy have you created or what do you think about when looking back that you're like, oh man, I really undervalued this thing, and this is actually way harder to do.

Angelo: I would say originally we, we, we did originally delve into like an outsourced support model, uh, and now we then undid it. And I undervalued— in, in retrospect, I undervalued the Australian support. I really did. And now it's so valuable. And I just, just dealt with— not Australian support, but I just dealt with the technical support experience with a new laptop I bought and it was woeful. Like really, I was really disappointed. Um, and it, and it, as I said at the very start of the conversation, it's not till you need it, you don't know until you need it. Um, yeah, that's the probably the— is that that kind of answer the question? Is that what the kind of answer you're looking for? Like it's that what I, what I look back now and say, why the hell do we even, even try to go to, to, you know, parts of India or parts of Manila or parts of, you know, to do, or Philippines to do support? Like why do we even try that? Why do we waste a year and a half 2 years of time rather than doing what we did after the fact and building an Australian team. And why don't we do that to, like, those 2 years prior? But I suppose there's lessons you have to learn. Like, you would never have come to that point. Yeah, unless you knew that.

Tommy: It's learning the hard way at that point.

Angelo: It really is. It really is. And it goes back to, like, the prince— I say I learn stuff every day. I learn things every day.

Tommy: Uh, mate, before we, uh, let you go, uh, yeah, yeah, we know you need to be left alone.

Josh: We should actually get— there's a, there's a great um, the bacon seasoning stuff. Oh yeah, it's like plant-based or whatever, but I just feel like— yeah, but no, but I think that like you need something.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, you do. You need—

Angelo: what is wrong with wholesome green vegetables?

Josh: Do I like— if you actually like the flavor, then it's good. Are you cool with it?

Angelo: That's a— that was judging. That was a judging joke. But no, I'm cool with your boring green vegetables.

Josh: But I reckon like the—

Angelo: there's—

Josh: yeah, there's bacon seasoning. Oh yeah, delicious.

Angelo: It makes everything better.

Josh: Yeah, and it's like, and it's not even bad.

Tommy: It's like ethical bacon. It's flavor. Um, two questions. Uh, domains, you guys sell them?

Angelo: We sell them.

Tommy: Who owns, like, who, who owns it? Like, how's that work?

Angelo: Domains are never owned by you. You never own the domain.

Tommy: You might own a couple. What are you doing?

Angelo: No, you don't. You lease the rights to use it, theoretically.

Tommy: Yes.

Angelo: Um, They're not— it's basically, think of it like a, it's a giant database of names, essentially. It's not owned by anybody. Um, it's a lease agreement between you and the, I would say, the authority body that runs, not even the registry provider, so not even the technical services provider who actually provide the technical, you know, registry database and, and whatnot that goes involved with that, but the actual policy, like whoever, like for example, in AU, .com.au, .net.au, .gov.au, .id.au, Did you know that existed?

Tommy: I didn't.

Josh: And the other is the .au thing.

Angelo: .au, direct registration.

Josh: That is controversial, right?

Angelo: It's, yeah, it's controversial. I'm gonna be, I—

Josh: You're on a board, aren't you?

Angelo: I'm on an out-of-board, so I'm an out-of-director. I'm also a registrar. So I have conflicting opinions. I primarily think, to generalise it, I'll get to your question. To generalise it, I think it's needed. I think we need to evolve. We are like one of two established ccTLDs, country code TLDs.

Josh: Like .tv, which is an island, which is an island.

Angelo: Yeah, I don't know off the top of my head where it is, but it is an island. Uh, but we are one of the one— there's only like two that are left that aren't— we're one of them that aren't direct registration or directly at dot dot. So you can get .au, you don't have to com.au or net.au.

Tommy: Yeah.

Angelo: Um, it's needed from— for both an evolution and stimulation. And I think it— a shorter name is always better. Yeah, having a shorter name. But it's also, if you want to really bore yourself, go read a lot of the policy around what it's meant to stand for. I think it's important because it's actually— at the moment, to get a com.au or a net.au, you need to be a, um, a business, have an ABN and ACN or trademark, and there's a lot of eligibility there. With .au, the current proposed policy around it, around the direct registration, is that you have to just have an Australian presence. That is important about getting Australians online and about giving Australians a, I suppose, a piece of real estate to, to stake their claim for their digital real estate to represent that they're Australian. That's important because at the moment the only way to do it is a right? Jesus Christ. I see, this is why a .id.au domain, um, which is confusing, you didn't know what it is, no one knows. Whereas if you have a .au and you create a— if .au was, was in, in terms of a policy standpoint, was meant to be like for like for a com or a net with the same eligibility, I'd be like, no, it's not going to be worth it. But considering it's being developed to be a place where you just have to have an Australian presence, meaning you can get it without an ABN as long as you've got What Australian presence means is a legal document that, that describes— it's all in development. Go to Outer's website if you're really bored and read the policy framework and submit suggestions and engagement. This is about community and stakeholder engagement. Um, that is important about getting Australians online and giving them a place, because at the moment Australians who want to be online will go and pick a .com, we'll go pick a .co, we'll go pick a .other TLD if they can't get a .com.au because they don't have an ABN.

Josh: And so when you're on a board Sorry, hang on.

Tommy: Who gets the cash? Who gets the cash for a .com.au? I mean, I send it to you.

Angelo: You send it to me. We pay the registry provider, which is a technical services provider in .au space, and then that's split. There is a fee that goes— they split the fee. They take a fee for their technical operations, and then part of it goes to AUDA, the .au Domain Administrator, which is a non-for-profit. That's the board that I'm on. I'm a director of that board. They govern .gov.au policy. They—

Tommy: oh, it's complex, isn't it?

Angelo: It's very complex. They do compliance for .au, they protect .au, um, and they represent— they're not a government, they're a government— in— gotta be, as a director, put my correct phrasing hat on— they're a government-endorsed— I think government-endorsed body. They've got a letter of endorsement essentially from the government that they can operate the AUTLD for Australia. So they're the policy development body. So part of it goes to them for policy development, for marketing, for registrars on the back end so that we, we can market .au and convince Australians to go and buy .au domain. Or I say, you know, I talk everything in AU, so .com.au, .net.au. Um, and then part of it goes to policy development, part of it goes to stakeholder engagement, etc. And then the registry is a commercial service, services provider that, um, take the money. And obviously they have team— they have a team of, I think it's 25 in, in Melbourne, um, as well as overseas. They're an overseas company, they're a US company company that now has the tender, um, and they have a US operations as well, but that goes to them. They support the Australian— the Australians in their business. We primarily— we registrars deal primarily with their Australian team, which is one of the fundamentals about, you know, as part of the— which, which went to tender like 2 years ago, and that's where they won it. Um, so yeah, so yeah, that's where the money fundamentally goes. And then that, that then goes to the upkeep of— you want to talk DNS— gets an upkeep of the root name servers so that the fact that you type www.pornhub.com into your browser. And I mean, the point where it traverses before it connects to the hosting provider to give you the content, that's all managed simplistically by that registry services provider. So keeping all that up is that their job. So you're— yeah, you're paying for that. That, that's what you're paying for.

Josh: Did you have to learn to be a board director? Like, what— because I guess you have a— you have to communicate the board message, do you feel?

Tommy: Or—

Angelo: I feel like I'm like the— I think I am the youngest on the board. I have no— that we have— we have a really strong board of really great directors, um, directors with a lot of experience in, in professional directorship and, and corporate governance and stuff. And I'm kind of like, rock up in a t-shirt and jeans, and I'm like, I'm like, cool. I'm like No idea. Like this whole— I mean, and I said, I said at the start of the conversation, what we're, what we're doing and what I do day to day is pretty much what they do in the sense that it's the whole corporate governance thing. I just don't have the words, yeah, to say this is transparency, this is, you know, accountability. Like we're saying be faithful, act faithfully, be, you know, be honest and open. That is all transparency. I just don't label it transparency. So yeah, I feel that I coming into that, that's it. That was— I was on the board I think November was our first— October was our first board meeting. So it's still fairly fresh. Um, it's first thing that ever in the corporate sense that I've done like that. Yeah, I had to learn. Yeah, I had to learn. And I've got a good board. I know I've got really supportive directors around me that are aware of this. And I'm the only one that comes with direct— well, I don't want to shortplay, but the direct— just direct current, um, experience in the industry.

Tommy: So Raymar's not on the board?

Angelo: Raymar is not on the board.

Tommy: Um, one last domain question.

Angelo: Go for for it. Uh, I did answer your other question.

Josh: Yeah, you did. On the .au thing, very quickly, because the— yeah, because it's, because it's an interesting one, because from my perspective, or when I think about it, it's like .au requires businesses to have two more domain— like, has— have an extra domain. So if you've got bigmediacompany.com.au, then you would want to get bigmediacompany .au. And so I think like, and that's been like the— because it was, it was very like a contentious issue because what, uh, there was one side which was saying, hey, it's going to cost more for— yeah, you're gonna have to do defensive registrations. But it also makes sense from a venture IP point of view that you want like having another product to sell. Like it's another product.

Angelo: It's, it's from a standpoint of a commercial standpoint point. It is another product. It's about stimulating the economy and going, oh, people can get a .au domain. Um, but in other cases where cctld direct registration has gone ahead, I know that there's a lot of talk about defensive registration, um, but it's actually probably like at 20%, 10%, like it's actually not as big an issue. Well, in, in past cases, I think .nz is an example— I might be wrong, it's either .nz or .uk— that they were very be concerned about the defensive registration in the direct rego. But primarily, the strings that exist in the direct rego aren't the same as the existing Cohen Zed. They're different. And that's what I think. I think there is definitely a concern with the defensive registration argument. But I also think in the same vein, it's— if you get the policy right and you get the eligibility right and you get the, you know, the— I'm trying to think of the actual word— the allocation right for people with existing rights. So like existing .com.au, .net.au holders to be able to claim their stake first. If you get that all right, I don't think you're going to see a lot of defensive registration, and there's no need. Fundamentally, it's meant to be the same way you wouldn't defend— you might have a .media domain, but the same way you don't— not everyone— like, everyone thought new TLDs are just a cash grab, which is like the .media, .shop.

Josh: Well, we've got like the dailytalkshow.com, and we've got the dailytalk.show and the dailytalkshow.com.au. But I love buying domain names.

Tommy: I love it. Yeah, the bigger is, is it good for SEO?

Angelo: Well, yeah, from SEO background, I think— I don't know, I'm not an SEO expert.

Josh: Well, I think that's like the interesting thing in regards like domain names, which is like, why do you need to have a top-level domain?

Angelo: I think it's changed a lot. I think Google's changed their like ranking algorithm. The actual domain name has become less important. It's more about content, um, and content and how you deliver it. And I think mobile and accessibility is more important then what string you use. Um, having said that though, everyone was concerned with new TLDs going, but it's going to be a defensive registration game. But you know, you haven't gone out and got .media or, you know, every single string. We haven't. Um, you can go—

Josh: I nearly had, like, for— I am probably an edge case where I have, in regards to thinking about ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got to—

Tommy: so yeah, my final question is, go for it. Do you have any seriously great domains that you own personally?

Angelo: Not AUs, because I'm not allowed to because I'm a registrar.

Tommy: Oh, you can't own a .com?

Angelo: I can own my own personal one.

Tommy: What about a .com?

Josh: I can have—

Tommy: yeah, have you got a powerful .com that you own? You've never bought one?

Angelo: Or not a busy one? Not a power— I, I think I've got like really cool ones. I'm like, that's a really cool—

Josh: what's a cool one that you got? Oh, you can't tell us.

Angelo: I can tell. I'm trying to think. Now you put me on the spot. I could pull up my portfolio.

Josh: How many do you reckon you have? You have?

Angelo: 50.

Josh: I have about the same.

Angelo: Yeah, not a lot.

Tommy: Is anyone making any cash off selling domains these days?

Angelo: From selling? Yeah, aftermarket still, yes. From monetizing, so having them advert— like having a, your, you know, all your resting domains you have in your portfolio, monetizing them, so putting up advertising and that?

Josh: Yeah, no.

Angelo: Yeah, but from selling them, there is still money to be made in aftermarket sales. Like, you know, if you've got a string that you want— I don't— I have a very we can— like, I, I'm not— I'm very anti-domain, even though I do warehousing, sitting, yeah, uh, domain parking, domain, um, aftermarket sales. I hate it. Like, I, I would, I would be pro a— I think it would need a lot more development and work, but I would be pro a use case that you don't— if you don't use it, you, you lose the right. Yeah, as a registrar, I'm like, no, that's a bad bad thing because I like— you want people to register them and keep renewing them. But then in terms of like as an internet community and actually giving people and going, oh no, I have to register, um, I want to register Victor Cafe or Victor Crescent Cafe but I can't, so I have to register that cafe on victorcrescent.com.au. That is a— that is shitty.

Josh: Like, you should—

Angelo: if you're not using that, and then for that per— for that to go, oh, and if that domain's not actually being used and they're going, oh, but I'll sell it to you for 10 grand, I'm kind of If you don't use it, you shouldn't have it.

Josh: It's a great Australian podcast ranker. I probably shouldn't have got— at least offer.com.

Tommy: We should offer it to them.

Josh: I did, I did once. A gym wouldn't— made me pay $200 to cancel when they said they wouldn't, and so I got their .com and did the story. But did it do anything? Yeah, it did.

Tommy: It did.

Josh: It worked, but it was probably— it's probably not usually works. It's probably not.

Angelo: Do you put their storey up but then they don't buy it off you?

Josh: And yeah, so they said all I wanted was my $200 back, and so they did that. But I realised that it's— oh yeah, I took all the website stuff down and I don't have the domain name anymore. But, uh, yeah, that was a very common—

Tommy: that's a good storey for you. Yeah, uh, I want to see your portfolio before we go just to, you know, see how it goes.

Josh: We could do some domain name trading. We could do domain name trading.

Angelo: It's like pin trading. We should do. Like, you know, you go to Disneyland and they like have pins and they're like big on the pin trading. We should do like started domain name trading.

Josh: Well, I reckon I would have some that you would want.

Tommy: Well, let's discuss it, mate. Thank you so much for having us.

Angelo: No, thank you so much for your time. Like, you guys are awesome to have a chat and I love talking and I appreciate you guys coming all this way.

Josh: I mean, yeah, I know. You come to Harare.

Angelo: You come to Harare.

Josh: We're definitely gonna go to Harare. And also like, Like, the cool— like, such a cool office.

Angelo: Thank you.

Josh: And like, I'm sure that you guys are going to be on those like Great Place to Work. Like, is that a thing that you're trying to do?

Angelo: We won, we won a, um, a great place— correct me, uh, Employer of Choice.

Josh: Amazing.

Angelo: Employer of Choice Award, which is fantastic.

Josh: Yeah.

Angelo: Um, and we had a piece in the Herald Sun. I mean, the saddest part about the entire thing is that I was the only one who could read the article because I realised I had a, uh, a subscription. I don't know, is it the paywall? What paywall? And then I came to the sad realisation that I had a News Corp subscription. Um, I said, well, I get to read the article about myself. Um, so one person got to read it. So we had that, and it's— but it's not, it's not just about that. It's not— it's literally genuinely about— and I say it, it's cliché, but it's about I can't answer every support ticket. A, I'm rusty and can't, but the volume I can't do. The best way that I can just—

Josh: from '97, just trying to update.

Angelo: I just updated it. I don't know why I broke The best way that I can make sure that, that customers, my customers, our customers are taken care of is to take care of the people who are taking care of the customers.

Tommy: Yeah.

Angelo: And that's my team.

Josh: Yeah.

Angelo: That's where the principle comes from. Plus, it's not completely altruistic. I hate having to bring packed lunches, and I want to be in a place where I love and actually feel comfortable and want to spend time. And I built it not just for me, but I built it for everyone else in the hope that we foster that and foster that belief and that foster that passion. So yeah. Thank you once again for coming. I hope you enjoyed dining.

Josh: Yeah, it was amazing. I'm gonna smash the rest. You're okay? No, no, no, I'm fine. And then I'm gonna go on the swing. Yeah, yeah, which we'll do.

Tommy: There's an indoor swing.

Josh: Do you reckon I'll vomit if I eat at the pie within 30 seconds?

Tommy: Absolutely.

Josh: And then try and go on the swing? Angelo, thanks so much.

Angelo: Thank you.

Josh: We should definitely get you on. I feel like this is the start.

Tommy: Yeah, you can come cheque out our tiny little office.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Studio. I like your This year, any other ISP questions?

Tommy: I'm thinking, I'm thinking a t-shirt with a cable and a shark biting it and it's saying, ouch, my internet.

Josh: Do you like that?

Angelo: That's good.

Josh: Yeah, it's a daily talk show. If you enjoyed the show, uh, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Otherwise, see you tomorrow, guys.

Tommy: See you guys.