Podcasts From The Edge podcast

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35:36

In the latest episode of The Innovators & Investors Podcast, host Kristian Marquez sits down with Sam Huang, Principal at BMW iVentures, for a candid conversation to explore the dynamic intersection of venture capital, artificial intelligence, robotics, and manufacturing innovation. Sam shares BMW iVentures’ investment thesis, focusing on Series A and B startups across the US, Europe, and Israel, with a strong emphasis on AI-driven SaaS, automation, and onshoring trends driven by labor shortages and supply chain disruptions. Listeners gain valuable perspectives on the evolving venture diligence process, the importance of product-market fit, and how higher ARR benchmarks reflect both market maturity and macroeconomic factors like rising interest rates. Sam also candidly discusses his unconventional career path—from a Stanford history PhD program to law school and ultimately venture capital—highlighting how diverse experiences enhance investment acumen. The conversation delves into the benefits of corporate venture capital, especially BMW’s hands-on support and networking advantages for portfolio companies. Additionally, Sam reveals how AI is integrated internally at BMW iVentures to optimize workflow and decision-making. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of innovation, investment strategy, and the transformative impact of AI and robotics on global industries. Learn more about Sam's work at https://www.bmwiventures.com/ and her involvement with the Asian Tech Collective at https://www.asiantechcollective.com/ Connect with Sam on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-huang-10375b106/ Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply at https://finstratmgmt.com/innovators-investors-podcast/ Want to learn more about Kristian Marquez's work? Check out his website at https://finstratmgmt.com…

Podcasts from the Edge

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Peter Bruce, veteran South African newspaper editor and commentator, interviews the country's social and political leaders and experts in a weekly effort to explain what is actually going on in this complicated country. Bruce's interviews are about making events easy to understand for people with little time to listen.

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Podcasts from the Edge

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#News Talk #News #South Africa #TimesLIVE

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Podcasts from the Edge

1
Shooting the Messenger 48:50

21 день тому48:50

48:50

The DA’s spokesperson on foreign affairs, Emma Powell, found herself at the wrong end of a powerful assault by the State last week after she notified the country that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Special Envoy to the US (and, subsequently, to North America), Mcebisi Jonas, had done little or no work trying to heal our battered relationship with the Donald Trump White House in the 90 plus days since he was appointed. In fact, the Americans wanted nothing to do with him and had declined his request for a diplomatic visa. The National Security Council, which reports directly to Ramaphosa alerted The Sowetan to a report it has done on Powell and accused her of running the country down during a trip to the US in February. The newspaper splashed the story as the Presidency put out a statement calling her part of “a right wing nexus” acting against South Africa’s interests abroad. Powell tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that this is nonsense. "It's an empirical fact that the ANC had done nothing of value or meaning in order to shore up and rebuild trust with the United States in order to safeguard South Africa's interests in regards to our continued inclusion in Agoa beyond September,” she says. “We were trying to do our part and waving South Africa’s flag”.…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
When a Trillion Rand might not be enough 54:54

27 днів тому54:54

54:54

President Cyril Ramaphosa said recently the State would spend more than a trillion rand over the next three years on building and repairing infrastructure. It sounds like a lot but it’s slightly more than just R300bn a year. Is that it? Public Works Minister Dean MacPherson tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge the R1trn is just what the State has at the ready to spend with private sector partners. If the take-up is strong – across rail, ports, water, health, education -- it could double the State’s contribution and get the country to where we are investing the equivalent of more than 25% of our GDP – that finally breaks the growth barrier and gets people working. But government is slow and disjointed and MacPherson wants to see more spending coming through Infrastructure South Africa, which reports to him. Eskom’s transmission business, for instance, is buying land for the 14000km of new lines we need. Yet a lot of the land it needs to acquire already belongs to the government. So why pay for it?…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
"The Americans Really Want to Trade With Us" 41:35

5 weeks тому41:35

41:35

As US President Donald Trump sends final notice to the South African government that he will impose a 30% tariff on its exports to the US on August 1, an Afrikaner delegation to the US, fronted by Freedom Front Plus leader Corne Mulder, has returned with a short list of points it says were given to them by senior White House officials when they met last week. "They really want to trade with us,” Mulder tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge. "But the Trump administration feels very strongly about these political hurdles that need to get out of the way.” The four principles — that the ANC denounce the singing of Kill the Boer, that all expropriation of property is fairly compensated, that all US investment into South Africa be free of BEE regulations and that farm attacks be classified as a priority crime — are, for the most part, almost impossible to comply with. But then again President Cyril Ramaphosa has nothing substantial on the table which which to beat back the Trump tariff assault. Still, he has wriggled his way out of tougher puzzles than the one the Afrikaners returned from Washington with. Would he consider even trying?…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
Why Enoch and the Treasury are fair game 45:33

14 weeks тому45:33

45:33

There’ve been voices raised around the failure, twice, of finance minister Enoch Godongwana to pass a 2025 budget through parliament, each time trying in vain to slip in a VAT increase to cover for the ANCs inability to grow the economy. We should not, the argument goes, be flinging mud at an institution so central to our democracy, actually mentioned in the Constitution, whatever the politics may be. That’s just nonsense, veteran financial journalist and former Treasury spokesman Jabulani Sikhakhane tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge. “To whom much power is given, much is expected,” says Sikhakhane. “We criticise the judiciary so why would you not criticise the Reserve Bank or the National Treasury? The judiciary is a creation of the Constitution too. I don’t think they should be protected. To disagree with the Reserve Bank or the Treasury about policy or the decisions they makes very healthy for democracy.”…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
Is Helen Zille bad for the DA brand? 41:00

15 weeks тому41:00

41:00

Former DA leader Tony Leon, in his new book, Being There, says DA Federal Executive chair and former party leader Helen Zille may have many positive qualities but that “I doubt the party brand is enhanced by her continued presence at the top of the organisation”. Peter Bruce asks him in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge whether he still believes that and whether he thinks the DA is right to fight to stay in the Government of National Unity despite being the principle cause of failure of the National Treasury’s two attempts to increase the rate of VAT. How does it fight coming local and national elections as part of a government run by the ANC?…

Podcasts from the Edge

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"Putin stole too much..." 32:39

18 weeks тому32:39

32:39

“Over 20 years,” writer, investor and campaigner Bill Browder tells Peter Bruce in this Special Edition of Podcasts from the Edge, “Vladimir Putin and his friends have stolen a trillion dollars from Russia.” He has to distract his people or they’d lynch him and It’s why he can’t stop his invasion of Ukraine. Russia today, Browder says, is a much more totalitarian state than apartheid South Africa ever was. In this wide ranging discussion the author of Red Notice and, more recently, Freezing Order, reveals his favourite country in the world is South Africa. He has a home in Cape Town but dare not visit for fear that Putin would ask the South Africans to arrest him and hand him over. And he worries that they would.…

Podcasts from the Edge

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What Business Wants from a GNU 37:00

18 weeks тому37:00

37:00

Business for South Africa chairman Martin Kingston tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that business would prefer the current Government of National Unity to stick together despite the current crisis over the DA’s decision not to support the budget. Business is deeply involved in Operation Vulindlela, the reform process inside the Presidency but, says Kingston, they’re not going to interfere in the politics. "It’s much better in our view to stay the course,” he says. "We are deeply concerned that ... there is going to be either a minority government or a change in the composition of the GNU that undermines certainty and predictability, that undermines confidence, and confidence levels are now very thin, or where we can’t see the reforms that are taking place then of course we’re allow to express our opinion. What we’re not going to do is apply pressure, as has been suggested, to any of the parties. That would be wholly inapprpropriate. We work with the government of the day.”. "What the investor community require is the certainty that key policies are going to be the subject of appropriate structural reform and that where decisions are taken they are subsequently implemented."…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
Steel yourself... 50:59

19 weeks тому50:59

50:59

South Africa’s steel industry is in the crosshairs once again, and once again for all the wrong reasons. Itac, the department of trade, industry and competition’s trade regulator, has been instructed by minister Parks Tau to conduct arguably the widest tariff review in its history, of imported steel. This as Arcelor Mittal SA (AMSA), the country’s only integrated steelmaker, is being rescued by the State. The review threatens widespread price increases on imports — everything steel-related is included — from iron ore to wheelbarrows. The problem, as trade expert Donald MacKay tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge, is that while literally hundreds of imported products will be reviewed, Itac normally takes 27 months to complete just one review. Parks Tau wants the review done by July! “The unintended consequences can be existential to some companies,” says MacKay, “You can’t do all of this and expect some companies to not fail. So maybe its not Mittal but there’s no way everyone comes through this… I think this review is too big. It should have been broken up.”…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
The deal Cyril has to do with Donald 1:06:40

24 weeks тому1:06:40

1:06:40

Joel Pollak, probably the next US ambassador to South Africa, tells Peter Bruce in this revealing edition of Podcasts from the Edge, that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his senior officials got it hopelessly wrong when they responded to US President Donald Trump’s attacks on South Africa with personal criticism of him. ”When Trump commented on South Africa,” says Pollak, “you don’t accuse him of misinformation. People in the media can do what they want but the President of South Africa and senior officials and so forth — you just don’t accuse Trump of misinformation and you don’t say he was acting irrationally. That’s exactly the wrong thing to do. You try to understand where he’s coming from, you offer compromises and you get to a better place … But it was absolutely necessary for him to behave that way.”…

Podcasts from the Edge

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Don’t do it 41:16

25 weeks тому41:16

41:16

If he were a young Afrikaner, former Gauging Premier Mbhazima Shilowa tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge, he wouldn’t take up Donald Trump’s offer of refuge in the US, expropriation act or not. For a start, “as a young Afrikaner I would be educated enough to be able to read between the lines. Trump is offering refugee status; in reality if you look at the laws and the executive orders he has passed on refugees .., it is to stop everything. He will simply have many Afrikaners hyped up… in reality they have it better here." As for Trump and South Africa, rushing to Washington makes no sense. President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to wait until his ambassador in the US, Ebrahim Rasool, tells him he can sit him down with Trump. Otherwise you risk making a fool of yourself.…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
They’re mature, we’re premature… 45:59

26 weeks тому45:59

45:59

Industrial strategy consultant Jake Morris enters the hot topic of industrial policy and tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that localisation has its place in industrial growth strategies and shouldn’t be automatically written off as many of its critics do. But they are only a part of many bigger and older success stories. “We have no choice but to follow a manufacturing-led growth path and yet our manufacturing is in decline, not just in terms of output but more worryingly in terms of investment and especially in terms of investment in new as opposed to replacement capacity. We have to follow this path and we’re currently going the other way.”…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
Trump takes the GNU back to the brink 42:17

27 weeks тому42:17

42:17

In the space of a week DA leader John Steenhuisen has moved from threatening legal action against the Expropriation Act signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa to defending the Act following US President Donald Trump’s astonishing attack on the country. Can Steenhuisen survive his flip-flop? Can the GNU survive the obvious neglect of the DA’s interests and red lines. Former DA leader tell Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that something will have to give. "I think there only so much one way traffic that any self-respecting party or organisation can endure,” he says, "and unless there’s fundamental reset of the relationship and the bona fide concerns of the DA and their constituency are taken into account I don’t think that this GNU can survive in the medium term unless there are different terms of trade within it.”…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
Cyril’s in his happy place 44:12

28 weeks тому44:12

44:12

Believe it or not, veteran political editor and Business Day Editor-at-Large Natasha Marrian tells Peter Bruce in tis edition of Podcasts from the Edge, President Cyril Ramaphosa is enjoying an all-too-rare personal and political purple patch right now and has found his happy place. Pushing through first the Bela Bill and now the new Expropriation Bill has done wonders for his position inside the ANC. Critics and doomsayers notwithstanding, the fact is that Ramaphosa has largely silenced his critics in the SACP and he has been able to brush aside deputy president Paul Mashatile’s people in Gauteng and opponents in the ANC’s KwaZulu structures. Sure, he is going to have to manage the DA in the GNU coalition but that’s more than doable.…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
Maintenance, it was always maintenance… 53:55

29 weeks тому53:55

53:55

Jamie Holley, CEO of Traxion, Africa’s largest private rail and rail services company, tell Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that the company is dead keen to participate in the long-promised concessioning of rail routes owned by Transnet to the private sector and now that Transport Minister has released an almost complete Network Statement the final preparations for the award of concessions are in place. But there’s a problem. Transnet's track and systems are old and broken, in “a critical state of disrepair” according to the statement. And Transnet, which moved 226m tonnes of bulk and freight in 2017/18 managed only 152m tonnes in 2023/24. So while train operators are lining up to run on the Transnet corridors, the track and the systems on them need eye-watering investment. If the government get the money flowing it could make a huge difference to our fortunes and Holley believes it will. And it wasn’t the truck that forced rail off the rails he reminds Bruce, “it was just maintenance"…

Podcasts from the Edge

1
The right kind of bloodlust 43:56

30 weeks тому43:56