#43 - From Sail To Sky: Performance, Leadership & Sovereign Capability | Dario Valenza

What if the habits that win America’s Cup races are the same ones that power safer, long‑range drones? We sit down with engineer and founder Dario Valenza of Carbonix to trace a line from elite yacht design to fixed‑wing VTOL aircraft that are redefining aerial data capture across pipelines, power lines, mines and coastlines.

Dario unpacks the performance mindset forged in sport: clarity under pressure, ruthless focus on outcomes, and a bias for measurable progress. We dig into separating signal from noise, turning piles of telemetry into a single “knob” that moves the metric that matters. From there, we get practical: why multirotors hit hard physics limits, how fixed‑wing platforms unlock endurance, and what it takes to hand control seamlessly between wing‑borne and rotor‑borne flight in real wind and turbulence. The result is a capability that rivals crewed aircraft without putting people in low‑and‑slow danger, and with a dramatic cut in carbon footprint.

Beyond engineering, we talk culture and commercialisation. Dario shares how to avoid perfection traps, hire adjacent experts, from boat builders to medical device engineers, and keep org charts flat to prevent silos. We explore showing rather than telling to earn trust with customers and regulators: bring them to the field, let them see and touch, then scale from evidence. The conversation widens to sovereign capability in Australia: why local manufacturing, skills, and supply chains matter, how dual‑use markets sustain resilience, and where over‑regulation quietly pushes innovation offshore.

If you care about drones, aerospace, high‑performance teams, or building a sovereign industry, this one delivers both hard‑won tactics and long‑view strategy. Listen, share it with someone who leads under pressure, and tell us your take on the balance between safety and speed. Subscribe for more conversations that build capability, and leave a review so others can find it.

Transcript

Setting The Performance Lens

Leon Goltsman 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Engaging Conversations. I'm your host, Leon Goltsman, and this program explores the mindset of people who build with clarity, courage, and long-term vision. Those who turn complexity into opportunity and ideas into meaningful impact. Because whether you're leading a company, investing in growth, shaping policy, or building something of your own, the real differentiator is how you think. Today, I'm joined by Dario Valenza, an engineer and founder whose journey began in elite yacht racing and now sits at the forefront of advanced Australian aerospace innovation. At its core, this is a conversation about performance, about focus, about building high trust teams and making clear decisions in environments that demand discipline and foresight, and about strengthening capability for business, for industry, and for Australia's future. A sincere thank you to Napine Advanced Rehab and Allied Health Centre and to Niaz Cannoth for supporting today's program. And to all our listeners around the world who continue to back what we're building here. Because conversations like this shape how industries evolve, they influence how leaders think, and ultimately they shape the future we build. So without further ado, let's get into it.

Speaker 1:16

Hi, I'm Dario Valenza. I'm the founder of Carbonics. My background is yacht design, yacht racing, anything to do with building cool, fast vehicles. And I found my way into aerospace and drones through Carbonics.

Leon Goltsman 1:31

Dario, thank you very much for coming on the show. Your journey, first of all, from America's Cup yacht design to founding Carbonics suggests that breakthrough innovation often comes from applying lessons across unrelated industries. Can you just tell us how did moving from elite sailing and composite yacht design into long-range drones shape the way you think about engineering risks and performance?

Speaker 1:53

Cross-pollination is really key. Being able to look at how other people have solved problems in different contexts, maybe free of uh certain assumptions about this is how we've always done it, uh, and seeing the commonality. So it's getting down to understanding the critical aspects of a problem and how what they have in common with other problems that have been solved and how different solutions can be applied. So, in my experience, uh what I loved about America's Cup and Racing is really the that it's it's outcome-driven, so to speak. Like you're measured by where you finish on the day. And so there's a very strict focus on achieving performance within a time frame, within a budget, within a certain set of constraints. Um, and that really allows the effort to be focused and to measure progress and to learn lessons and to see improvement over time.

Leon Goltsman 2:43

Well, high performance and sport both operate under intense pressure. You just said so yourself. Also, of course, there's limited resources, unforgiving timelines. What did competitive sport teach you about decision making under pressure? And how has that influenced the way you lead and prioritize?

Speaker 3:01

The overlap between sports and business is really clarity of focus. It's um identifying what matters, what needs to be prioritized, and and what can fall by the wayside or be secondary. So in in America's Cup Funding enough, having too many resources can can actually work against you. So the the the commonality between uh high performance sports and and startup businesses is really about being able to make decisions with clarity under pressure. And that pressure can be time, obviously, uh, it can be resources, uh, it can be competitive pressure. And it's about having the discipline and the focus to gain that clarity and pick priorities in a way that's effective.

Leon Goltsman 3:42

I suppose it's also about making calls without perfect information.

Signal Versus Noise In Data

Speaker 3:47

Absolutely. It's it's not just imperfect information, but it's being able to sift the signal out of the noise. Uh so i a lot of the work that goes into preparing for a race and tuning a yacht and understanding how to improve its performance uh is is basically gathering data, gathering information. So go out there, uh sail, put put put put the miles in, measure as many channels as you can in terms of the wind speed, the condition, the waves, the performance of the yacht. Uh and by definition, those measurements uh lie on a graph. Uh you then need to understand what do they mean, what do they represent, what's correlation rather than causation. Uh, how do you drill down to out of all this noise, out of all this data, what is the thing that's actually making a difference? And what knob can I turn to actually get a better outcome?

Leon Goltsman 4:36

Well, data is available to a lot of people. I mean, some people can buy it, some people can Google it, download it, search it online. But really, it's what's what I'm understanding is the importance of knowing how to use the data. Now, Carbonics operates at the intersection of hardware autonomy and regulation where innovation is often constrained by compliance. And this is an interesting one because you find that what you can and cannot do is usually determined by somebody who doesn't understand what you need to do. And that that's always like the red tape that gets in the way of progress. How do you first apply first principles thinking when regulations and legacy frameworks work against speed and experimentation?

First Principles Meets Regulation

The Case For Long‑Range UAVs

Speaker 5:18

So being being at the intersection of a physical innovation and a new way of doing things is always interesting because you have to balance up in your head, in the lab, testing in the field, you've convinced and proven to yourself that you have a better way of doing things. Then you need to bring the world on the journey. You need to be able to convey to your customers, to the regulators, to investors, to stakeholders that this new way of doing things is feasible and will give you the outcome that you're required. And so that's about clear communication, it's about showing, it's about proving, and also picking your battles. Like do the things that that matter differently that'll give you the edge. So that the bigger picture, when when you look at, you know, being able to summarize your mission succinctly is key to that focus that we talked about, strip away the extra, the sort of extraneous stuff, and look at what you have set out to do. So in our case, it was really about long-range aerial data capture. So being able to say, currently, every linear asset that you have out there, so pipelines, power lines, open cut mines, um national parks, beaches that require situational awareness. So effectively scanning to create a digital twin to understand what's going on on the ground. The only way really to do it at a high resolution is uh crewed aircraft. So legacy aircraft, so helicopters, uh a plane with a pilot in it. Now, by nature of what you're trying to do, which is scan terrain, that means you're flying low and slow, which means you have very little margin. So it's inherently a dangerous way to do it. And it's expensive. And when you think about the fuel burn, you know, you're carrying a person and all the safety equipment around it. Uh so it's a problem that exists. It's something that could be done better with a drone. Now, in order to be able to do that, you need to be able to have a drone that has the performance to match a crewed aircraft, which means if you're only flying for 20 minutes, it's no good because you can't cover the distance. Uh, you end up having to do it in hops, which means you've got to access terrain and bother farmers and all that stuff. And so, particularly in regional areas, that what you want is an aircraft that does the same thing as a helicopter, but without a person in it. And so when you actually start digging into that problem, the performance of the aircraft is necessary but not sufficient. Then you need to have the redundancies, the safety, the reliability. You need to be able to communicate with it at a distance, you need to be able to make yourself visible to other aircraft, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's really the focus and the direction. What are we trying to do? We're trying to provide a better solution for this long-range data capture. Why do we have an edge? Because we have a technology that allows this to happen. But then it's about, you know, talking to the customer about what kind of data they want, what's important to them, what's the constraint. And to come back to the regulations, absolutely you're you're looking for outcomes. You're looking for working with the regulator for them to get their head around what you're doing because it's new.

Fixed‑Wing VTOL Explained

Leon Goltsman 8:11

It's new and people don't understand. They think a drone is is this thing you can buy, it goes up, annoys people, makes lots of noise and then comes down. But we're not talking about those kinds of drones. We're talking about something completely different. Do you want to just tell us what some of the benefits of those particular drones that you and carbonics make?

Speaker 8:31

Yeah, so our drones, um, when people, I guess, conventionally think of drones, they think of uh what we call a multi-rotor, which is uh a sort of platform which has two, four, six, eight propellers and effectively takes off vertically and hovers around and has it, it buzzes. Now this is and annoys people. Uh it can annoy people, yes, depending on what you're trying to do. Um and and that's very practical, obviously, because they can take off and land from anywhere, they can hover, uh, but they're inherently limited in flight time just due to the physics, because they're they're sort of beating the air into submission to stay in the air. Uh no matter how big a battery you put on them, you're then carrying more weight and and you use the same energy. So the only way really to achieve the range is what they call the fixed-wing aircraft. So the reason uh when you fly to Europe from Australia, you don't take a helicopter, you take an airliner, which is a fixed-wing aircraft. That gains efficiency by means of going through the air and generating lift uh via the wings. So now your propellers, your motors only have to overcome the drag, they don't have to overcome the weight of the aircraft. And so that's fine, but uh fixed-wing aircraft obviously needs a certain airspeed to operate. So then you have to figure out how do I take off and how do I land. Now, if you've got an airport handy, that's great. You can use a runway. Uh if you're out in the middle of the bush, then you need a different way to launch and retrieve. And that you can either use a catapult, but then that that becomes uh messy in terms of the equipment you have to bring and it's very violent on the aircraft. So we've integrated what they call VTOL, vertical takeoff and landing, on the aircraft, which means it's it's a fixed-wing aircraft that has all the advantages and efficiencies. Uh when you look at it, it basically looks like a big glider. Long, skinny wings, uh very sort of slender, very elegant. Uh, but it also has a set of rotors that'll lift it off the ground uh from anywhere, basically. And it's also a form of redundancy. So if anything were to go wrong with uh what we call the pusher motor, which is the main engine that carries the aircraft during its mission, uh, you can always revert to the vertical takeoff system and put the aircraft down safely. Uh and obviously to be able to do that, there are a lot of physics problems you need to overcome, which are not trivial in terms of the command and control, the redundancy. Uh so being able to hand over from one mode of flight to the other is basically an energy management problem. So as you slow down and the wings stop working, and then the VTOL has to take up that burden, and the control has to be handed over from the aerodynamic surfaces to the rotors. Uh, being able to do that seamlessly, reliably, in wind, in choppy conditions has taken a lot of RD and a lot of testing.

Leon Goltsman 11:06

And that's something you've already accomplished.

Speaker 11:08

Absolutely, yes. Fantastic. We've been operating commercially for close to three years now.

From R&D To Deployment

Leon Goltsman 11:12

Yeah, I remember the Prime Minister actually talked about your brand, but that's and that's another thing we can talk about a bit later on. So we've just heard the challenges of taking off landing vertically, horizontally, something that not many people can achieve. Carbonics has done that. And with many deep tech foundings struggled to bridge the gap between brilliant RD and the real-world deployment, which is you know, a lot of people are innovating, but at the end of the day, you can innovate all you want. It's what they deliver that matters. Irrespective, there's always going to be lessons along the way. What are the most common mistakes founders make when commercializing deep tech? And what did you, what did Carbonics do differently?

Culture, Trust And Flat Teams

Speaker 11:55

I don't know about common, but I I think that tendentially, if you are a tech-focused founder, if you're sort of a geek that likes tech, which I am, uh, it's very tempting to seek perfection. Um, and being able and making that the enemy of the good is is really the problem. So, first of all, you don't want to set a set of requirements in isolation. It always has to refer back to what are we actually trying to do, what's important to the customer, what's important operationally, what do we need to get through, regulations, et cetera, et cetera. So setting a set of engineering goals that that may not reflect what's actually needed in the field is probably the greatest danger. And being aware of that from the outset, and in my case, again, with my background in racing, that's something you're very aware of, where you know you'll never reach perfection. And you know that if you go down a rabbit hole to develop something that's too radical or might have potential but takes a lot of refining to achieve that potential, you'll miss race day and you'll lose. Um, and so be having that focus to say, what are we actually trying to achieve here? What's the shortest path to get there technologically?

Leon Goltsman 13:00

It's also operating at the edge of performance and safety does require trust at every level. So building trust is is the key. Not just trust in the in the market, but also having the confidence that you've got a high-performing team that can deliver.

Speaker 13:18

Yeah, trust is absolutely vital to be able to achieve what we're trying to achieve. Um I think culture's built over time, and in our case, particularly, but I think it's true whenever you're trying to do something new, you're not going to find someone who's got 10 years experience doing that thing because it's a new thing. So you need to find something adjacent. Uh, like again, in our case, the composites technology that goes into the aircraft, uh, the people that know how to do that uh are usually boat builders. So they they bring that that know-how to the team. Similarly in electronics, we have people that have experience from medical devices or railway systems. Uh, there are adjacent industries which aren't necessarily drones, uh, but they are complex, they're highly regulated, uh, they're performance critical. And so we've had people in the team with backgrounds in everything from Formula One to uh flying manned aircraft, crewed aircraft. Um, so that mix is important and and fusing that into one culture where okay, you've got your background, you've got your knowledge, you've got your way of thinking and doing things, but you bring that to the mix and you align to a common goal. Uh and then communication is key. So we we found over time a flat org chart is important. We we've gone down the road in the past of creating silos and having layers of management, and it's just slowed things down. I think you you need people to who are self-motivated, who are bought into the vision, who are invested and believe in it and take responsibility for their work. And you need them in a place and in a structure that can share information freely, that's curious, uh, that can look at what other people are doing and say, okay, my little area that I'm working after affects this other area in this way. And if what I'm doing doesn't fit with what the other person is doing, we need to sort that out sooner rather than later. And so having that alignment and doing that regularly, daily, at every opportunity to share information, I guess it's another way to cross-pollinate, but it makes sure that everyone's aligned. And being able to say no to things is very important, to say this is our goal. Someone knocks on the door today that's a potential customer that might have something tempting, uh, that you go, well, we could do that and generate some revenue and diversify. And being able to say, well, is that in service of the main goal? Yes, no. If it's not, keep going.

Leon Goltsman 15:43

So it's having the discipline to be able to sometimes knock good ideas on their head so you can continue doing the great, brilliant things that you're already doing.

Speaker 15:52

And and ego is very important. Like you you obviously everyone has enough confidence to work in a high performance team and is competitive, necessarily will have a high level of confidence. And so people in the team do tend to have that. But there's a difference between confidence and ego. So you can be passionate about something, you can advocate for an idea because you believe that that's the way to do it, but you need to be open to someone pointing out that there's something you've missed, or on balance there's another way of doing it. And so as much as everyone brings their contribution to the table, they're also very quick to drop something when they see a better way. And that keeps things free.

Leon Goltsman 16:29

Because it's all about working as a team. Absolutely. And by from what I'm seeing is it's not so much what an individual attains by themselves, you're all looking at a bigger picture.

Showing Not Telling Innovation

Speaker 16:40

Yeah. And I think part of the attraction of working in a startup or in a smaller company with all the sacrifices it entails, is you can see the effect of what you're doing. So, particularly in aerospace, like we joke, that we've had uh interns, graduates, apprentices that want to be in aerospace. Now, if they went and did an apprenticeship with a a big conventional aerospace company, they might spend a year working on a little detail of a hinge of a door that then goes and gets manufactured somewhere where they never see it. And ten years later it might turn up on a on an airframe. But when they do something at Carbonics, what you do today, you can see tomorrow whether it's good or not. You can see the impact. Uh, you can design something today, we'll have a 3D printer tomorrow, test fitter, then it'll go and get made out of carbon next door. It'll be on the aircraft flying tomorrow.

Leon Goltsman 17:27

So you're taking people on a journey.

Speaker 17:30

Absolutely. And and as a founder, that that's been fascinating for me because start out going, okay, I have this vision in my head, I think I can do it, it all makes sense, let's give it a go. And when you're doing something new, it's it's not everyone will buy into it. They might say, This is crazy, it's not going to work, or it's too risky. But over time, as you gather momentum, as you build a team, as you get runs on the board, as you get buy-in, it becomes its own thing. It becomes an entity that, okay, this is now something people understand and believe in and can get behind. And so watching that happen, watching that maturity, watching people give significant chunks of their working life towards making this happen is fantastic. Like that's really where you see it start to move.

Leon Goltsman 18:16

Well, I see from you a a skill where you're able to take emerging technologies that outpace the understanding of customers and regulators, but uh doing it in a way that helps people see things from your perspective. Because a lot of this technology is new, as you said, but it doesn't exist. So, how do you communicate innovation when people just don't get or understand what's possible?

Why Sovereign Capability Matters

Speaker 18:42

Um absolutely you need to bring them on the journey. And and I think you want to show them, not tell. Uh, but you do that over time as well to establish credibility. So in my case, early on, I made a point of blogging and sharing on LinkedIn uh the steps along the journey. So to say, why is this feature important? Why have we chosen this design rather than that? Why are we focusing on this market rather than that? And and sort of create this breadcrumb trail where if people want to go and dig, they'll see that your expertise has been formed over time. But then when it comes to bringing customers and regulators and investors on the journey, ideally you want to show them rather than tell them. So get them out in the field, watch the thing fly, get them in the workshop, get them to touch it, really make it real. Um and obviously in the very early stages that may not be possible. So then it is about communication and storytelling.

Leon Goltsman 19:37

But also if you understand the product, you're able to frame outcomes rather than just the technology.

Speaker 19:44

Absolutely. And it has to be about outcomes. Because technology is nice, but it if it's not fit for purpose or if it's not applied to something practical. And again, that takes me back to racing as well, right? You you you you have a set of artificial constraints, you have a set of rules, right? The boat can only be so long, so wide, so heavy, you can have so much sail area, you can use this material rather than that. And as artificial as it is, it sets some boundaries. It's not just the best outcome in some abstract sense where I want to make an elegant, beautiful piece of technology, but I want to make something that within those constraints does the best possible job. And whether in our case it's scanning infrastructure as opposed to crossing a finish line first, it doesn't matter. It's what are we trying to do? Where are we adding value?

Leon Goltsman 20:30

Yeah, well, speaking of adding value, Australia is always leading the way in different types of technology, a lot of inventions and a lot of innovations. People aren't even aware that a lot of those uh technologies that are used around the world came from Australia. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need defence because everyone would feel safe that it's not a perfect world. And we've seen it time and time again that uh we need uh to be prepared. And Australia is increasingly focused on sovereign capability in aerospace and defence. Dario, in your opinion, why does sovereign UAV capability matter for Australia? And what are the risks of relying on offshore technology?

The Hidden Cost Of Over‑Regulation

Speaker 21:20

Look, I don't think we need to apologize for the need to have defense. You'd rather have it and have the deterrent, uh, and that puts you in a strong position. So being able to manufacture is key because you can turn the ability to manufacture one thing into the ability to manufacture something else. You have the know how, you have the supply chains, you have the machinery and strategic independence. And we've experienced quite recently what happens when the supply chains get disrupted. Um, you can't rely on stuff coming in by ship over the ocean when that becomes disrupted. And so you need to be able to fend for your. Which means particularly having the ability to manufacture, because there are a lot of adjacencies in manufacturing. So a manufacturing line that'll build one thing can be adapted to build something else, assuming the raw materials are similar and the processes are similar. And so maintaining that capability and capacity is important. And particularly with drones being very center stage in in modern warfare, dual use is key. So having a commercial environment where the regulations, the manufacturing capability, the skills, and the uptake uh are conducive to drone businesses thriving means that you automatically have that defense capability when you need it. And and defense by nature is sort of lumpy in terms of uh the acquisition cycle, and uh it's very difficult for a business to rely on defense, and I think that the defense doesn't want businesses to rely on them, uh, but it it is transferable. And so if you don't have one, you're not gonna have the other.

Leon Goltsman 23:05

Well, we've seen with any regulation there's often some hidden costs involved, and uh it's not clear straight away what those costs are until many, many, many years later. And look, while regulation does manage risk, excessive regulation can unintentionally stifle innovation. Where do you see over regulation doing more harm than good? And how could Australia strike a better balance?

Speaker 23:32

I think the cost of regulation is hidden. If you run a business, you know how much time you're spending on unproductive work. Uh where for one unit of time that you're you're building something that's useful to someone and someone wants to pay you for and provides value to a customer, you're spending multiples of that time on compliance. And that's across the board. So that's everything from employment contracts to environmental restrictions to chasing grants and reporting on grants and things like that. And in the case of a regulated industry such as aviation, um, there's there's that side of it as well, where, as you say, like it's there for good reason and and to ensure safe outcomes. But I I think the the biggest damage I think being done, particularly the way regulation is done in Australia, is sort of this guilty until proven innocent assumption. Where rather than sort of being given latitude to say, okay, we assume you're doing the right thing, but we'll check every now and then and we would want to be informed. And um you're basically not allowed to do something until you've jumped through a bunch of hoops and you've been given permission. And so if you extend that indefinitely, you'll get to a point where you can't do anything, where everything is prohibited until you get an approval to do it.

Leon Goltsman 24:51

Do you think we're kind of heading towards that way? Not just in your industry, but other industries as well? I think we're there. Already there.

Speaker 25:00

Well, you name it, like development approvals, as I said, like starting a business, uh, all the stuff around financing and who you're allowed to take money from and who you're not, and the the sort of rent-seeking that goes on around.

Leon Goltsman 25:17

When I say us, I mean our nation, because if we're over-regulated in certain things, other countries who aren't as regulated have the upper hand.

Speaker 25:27

Look 100%.

Leon Goltsman 25:28

And um we're seeing that and we're seeing people, we're seeing good businesses take their innovation overseas because of that.

Mindset For High‑Stakes Founders

Speaker 25:35

We're seeing that regularly, and we're seeing things like, you know, fairly trivial, but um, a lot of car manufacturers that go through a compliance process in Europe and the USA to make a car safe for the road have to jump through a bunch of additional hoops to sell into the Australian market, and a lot of them make the call that is not worth it. And so we don't get the same range of vehicles that they do because we impose additional restrictions above and beyond what's already considered acceptable and sufficient in the rest of the Western world. We're seeing that across all kinds of technology that it's just not worth getting them compliant in Australia because the the the cost versus the size of the market doesn't make sense. And then you're also seeing this asymmetry uh where you have products that are built in environments that don't have that kind of regulation where that there's more freedom to to innovate. And it's not about low-cost labor, it's about low-cost government. It's about low-cost environment where they can innovate and then they can sort of dump it into this market, and it's not possible to compete because it's not a level playing field.

Leon Goltsman 26:40

Yeah. And and and look, one of the other things as well is we see election cycles, especially with federal government being only three years. Some things that are very, very crucial isn't even on on the government's radar because it's not popular. And so they'll talk about something completely different rather than what we need to be focusing on here domestically.

Speaker 27:01

I don't think it's either or. Obviously, you can talk about what's going on in the in the world and and be aware of it, but absolutely you need to look after your own backyard first. And and that is very myopic to think that we can offshore everything and and not do anything here and we'll just rely on trade. Obviously, there'll come a day when that's no longer feasible. And, you know, we've seen it already, we've seen supply shocks, we've seen sort of the approach of only relying on on low added value, uh like digging resources over the ground and sending them overseas, and we're shifting the skill to refine them, but also the pollution and all the stuff that we want to protect against here is now being done somewhere else where those protections aren't there. So the net result is you're actually polluting more and it's costing us. And it's costing us.

Leon Goltsman 27:50

So there's a lot of challenges that people would be facing in a new business or a new venture. Your journey reflects endurance, systems thinking, and long-term vision. So for founders working in complex high-stakes industries, what mindset has mattered more than any technical skill?

Recognition And Real‑World Proving

Speaker 28:08

I think staying the course, obviously. So having a the a long-term view uh to say if the mission is worthwhile, which you've decided it is because you've started the business, uh, then see it through. And that means navigating inevitable challenges, which are usually not the ones you're worried about, they're the ones that sneak up on you and happen, and uh there's adjustments you have to make, there's different people that come and go, and you need to sort of be the steady hand on the tiller with a very clear direction. Uh and obviously you you can pivot and you can adjust and and you can refine that based on feedback. But but having always knowing where you want to go is is really key.

Leon Goltsman 28:47

And that's having your direction set. In drone talk, you need to have the rudder in the right place.

Speaker 28:53

Yeah, well my favorite analogy um which involves an aircraft but only metaphorically is starting a business is you you you jump off a cliff and you're building an aircraft on the way down, and you only have until you get to the bottom to make the aircraft fly. And and you can extend that, you can you know do different funding rounds, you can buy yourself time, but ultimately you you have to show progress. You have to show that you're getting closer to the goal. And it doesn't have to be perfect, it it has to be a step towards it, but you have to have, believe in, and communicate a path to the goal. How are we gonna get there? Well, I'm gonna do this, then I'm gonna do that, then I'm gonna do that. Okay, is step one achievable? Probably. Is step two achievable? Well, after step one, it'd make sense that it's relatively low risk. And you just keep going like that, step after step after step.

Leon Goltsman 29:43

Well, Dario, really good information, and I'm sure um anyone who is uh looking at starting up their own business or even taking their existing venture to the next level, this is definitely the podcast that they will find interesting. Uh Dario, we mentioned the Prime Minister at the start of the programme. Tell us what happened there.

Speaker 30:04

So we opened our first facility, which happened to be on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour, and we invited what was a local member at the time uh to come and open the facility to have someone there to say a few words.

Leon Goltsman 30:19

And the local member, of course, he was also the communication minister. Yeah, and it was relevant. People are wondering who is this prime minister. Uh you can maybe you can link the video, but uh before we'll we'll provide the link in the show notes and they can find out if they really want to know who it is.

Step‑Change Impact And Contact

Speaker 30:37

Absolutely. But basically what happened is between when we booked the appearance and when the day came, this person became prime minister. And so ended up coming as prime minister and honouring the commitment and saying a few words about carbonics, which was nice.

Leon Goltsman 30:51

It was really good. It was actually really admirable because it was his first or second day of being prime minister. So he did say a few good words, and that was describing Carbonics uh being the only company, the only innovative company that does what it does, not just in Australia, but around the world. He said that.

Speaker 31:09

That was his words, and that's we we've had a bit of recognition like that because it is unique. Like we have customers from around the world coming to us, like US primes in defence. Uh we have a fleet flying in Ukraine, which is a very challenging environment for drones, and we've proven that the tech works. It does what we say it does. Uh, and so we have obviously garnered attention from politicians over time who want to show that this is an example of what we should be doing more of. Uh so we're very happy to support that.

Leon Goltsman 31:40

And it's an Australian initiative.

Speaker 31:42

Absolutely, Australian-owned. Um, most of our supply chain is Australian and there's a lot of hidden gems there. Uh, where there's technology that was developed here, that there might be small businesses that supply worldwide, uh, we incorporate that in our aircraft as much as possible.

Leon Goltsman 31:56

Aria, thank you so much. There's a lot of information to take in, but the key takeaway is that innovation is something that you've got to pursue and keep going because it's something that you know has a purpose and meaning and adds value to the communities, to the country, to find a better way to do something that we already do now, but in a different way.

Speaker 32:20

I think there's refinement and there's revolution. So if you can make something 5%, 10% better, in some circumstances that might give you an edge, uh, might be worth doing. What we're looking at is a 98% reduction in carbon footprint of these inspection flights. It's saving lives, not putting people in dangerous situations in aviation, uh, not having people drive around for hundreds of kilometres to go on someone's farm and check a piece of uh infrastructure. Uh, so it's a step change, it's massive. Uh, and across the industry, it's enormous. It's hundreds of lives, it's it's thousands of tons of CO2, um, and it's just a better way to manage infrastructure, to get really vital information, and information is key, uh, up to date, regularly. Um, and so when you see the opportunity to make something radically better, then it's worth pursuing. Excellent.

Leon Goltsman 33:14

Daria, thank you so much for your time. If someone wanted to get in contact with you to get more information or just find out more about carbonics, where would they go?carbonics.com.au.

Speaker 33:31

Otherwise, my personal LinkedIn, Dario Valenza, they're probably the two best ways to get in touch.

Leon Goltsman 33:36

I will provide that in the show notes. And until then, Dario, keep up the great work, mate. Thank you very much once again for taking your time. My pleasure being here, thank you. Thank you, Dario. Now that was a conversation I genuinely valued, and I hope you did too. Spending time with people like Daria Valenza is a real privilege. Conversations like this reminds me that leadership is built on clarity, endurance, and a long-term commitment to strengthening capability for industry, for community, and for our country. My sincere thanks to Daria for sharing his insights so openly, and thank you to Napeen Advanced Rehab and Allied Health Center and to Niaz Cannoth for supporting the program and backing conversations that genuinely matter. Now, in our next episode, the timing couldn't be better. Just in time for International Women's Day, I'll be sitting down with Brenda Miley, the driving force behind Let's Go Surfing. Brenda is someone I deeply respect. She stepped into a traditional male-dominated sport, carved her own path, and built something extraordinary, a community grounded in inclusivity, confidence, and belonging. International Women's Day recognizes leadership, resilience, and impact. Brenda lives that every day. So lock this into your diary, follow the programme, share it with someone who needs to hear it. If you have a conversation worth sharing or know someone who does, I'd genuinely love to hear from you. I'm Leon Goltsman. Until next time, stay connected, stay curious, and let's continue building stronger communities together.