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Australia in a world of Autocrats Vs Democrats

This week the Stanford Australia Association had the great pleasure of hosting Michael McFaul at a presentation of his new book 'Autocrats Vs Democrats'. He told us the time when Putin lectured Obama “We're Not Like You” Michael McFaul in his new book on Autocrats vs. Democrats and the Fight for the 21st Century. Michael shared many nuanced and deeply thought through insights from living on the front line with geo political actors like Obama and Putin, XI and Trump and his experiences and interpretations as to where we are and where we're going. In this interview at Hoover At the same event we had the four senior teaching staff from Stanford HAI. (https://hai.stanford.edu/)

Michael McFaul, Author - Australia in a world of Autocrats Vs Democrats

At the same event we had the four senior teaching staff from Stanford HAI. (https://hai.stanford.edu/)

Stanford HAI’s mission is to advance humanity through AI and data science. Our work focuses on discovery, technological innovation, educational transformation, and societal impact.

James Landay, Cofounder and Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)

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- James Landay -  Cofounder and Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) Professor of Computer Science and Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan Professor School of Engineering - spoke about - HAI’s mission and approach to advancing AI research, education, and policy with a focus on people. 

"There are real reasons to take the risks from increasingly capable AI systems seriously. But I don’t think the most productive debate is whether any one prediction about existential risk will prove correct. These predictions should be based on science, not science fiction. What matters is what these systems can actually do, how reliably they can do it, where they fail and what happens when they’re deployed in the real world.

As capabilities advance, we need rigorous, independent evaluation that can give policymakers and the public evidence rather than asking them to choose between competing predictions about the future."

- Michael Bernstein — Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, Bass University Fellow and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.AI and Collective Decision-Making: How AI can help people collaborate and make decisions together.

- Arvind Karunakaran — Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Management Science and Engineering. He is a Core faculty of the Centerfor Work, Technology, and Organization (WTO), Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), Digital Economy Lab (DEL). Spoke about AI, Expertise, and Authority at Work: How AI is changing professional expertise, workplace decision-making, and accountability.

- Russell Wald — Executive Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)AI Governance and the Public Interest: spoke about AI Governance and the Public Interest: How universities and public institutions can help shape AI’s development for public benefit.

- Tony Surtees, AM  
President, Stanford Australia Association
AI Brings Risk and Opportunities to Communications - So What Can We Do About It?

Communication is the last mile of trust. No matter how sophisticated the technology behind an idea, if you cannot explain it in plain English, the idea does not penetrate.

That was the thread running through last night's Think Fast Talk Smart event at the University of Wollongong, hosted by the Stanford Australia Association and the collective alumni of International Business Schools. I was proud to bring together Matt Abrahams, lecturer in strategic communication at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and Dr Susan Zhang PhD EMBA, who leads start-ups and VC for NVIDIA across Australia and New Zealand.

Matt is the host of the podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart, downloaded by millions of listeners around the world, and the author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter and Speaking Up Without Freaking Out. Matt has spent his career studying the mechanics of spontaneous communication, how we organise our thoughts under pressure, manage anxiety in the moment, and speak with clarity when there is no script to fall back on. He named something most of us feel but rarely say aloud: 85 per cent of people are nervous in high-stakes settings, and the other 15 per cent are probably lying. His answer is not to eliminate the nerves but to manage them, with a simple structure, What? So What? Now What?, to keep communication clear instead of collapsing into what he calls "AI slop." Anxiety, he argued, is fear of a future outcome, so the antidote is presence: a roadmap over a script, a breath held twice as long on the exhale as the inhale, a cold drink in hand. Matt also recommended the What? So What? Now What? framework to package information concisely.

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Susan brings experience from NVIDIA, Canva, Google and TikTok before her move into the AI and venture ecosystem. She is a TEDx speaker, a published author twice over, and a recognised voice on where artificial intelligence is taking communication, education, and the startup landscape here in Australia and globally. Susan brought the founder's view. In the NVIDIA Inception program, she said, the differentiator is never the polished AI-generated deck. It is a founder's ability to explain a hard technical problem the way you would to your grandmother. She also named a risk worth sitting with: the empathy paradox. AI can be a genuine thought partner, sharpening our blind spots before a difficult conversation. But if it is relied upon too heavily, it produces empathy atrophy, where we outsource that reflection that real connection depends upon.

Two different disciplines, one shared conclusion. As AI accelerates every part of business, education and start-up life, the founders and leaders who will lead are the ones who stay most human and authentic in how they communicate. We must all keep investing in that human skill deliberately and not assume it will automatically look after itself.

Communication Frameworks & Anxiety Management

Thank you, Matt and Susan, for a genuinely valuable evening for our Australian alumni, and guests and our start-up community.

25 August 2026
President, Stanford Australia AssociationTony Surtees, AM

AI, Authenticity, and the Startup Ecosystem

The panel also discussed the shift from AI as a "cheat code" to AI as a pedagogical tool.

Dr Susan Zhang provided a front-row perspective on AI native startups and the leadership required to navigate global teams.

AI in Education and Parenting

In Memorium

Vale John Walton, AM

Australia has lost one of its most versatile business figures. John Walton AM has passed away, and with him goes a career that shaped retail, finance, health administration and heritage in this country across five decades.
John built and chaired an extraordinary breadth of enterprises: Waltons Limited, FNCB-Waltons, Waltons Insurance, Barclays Credit Corporation, Burson-Marsteller Australia, Jardine Insurance Brokers, Mark Foys and Miller Anderson among them. He chaired the Australian Retailers Association and the Retail Traders Association of New South Wales, giving voice to an industry he understood from the inside. He led the Eastern Sydney Area Health Service and the Prince Henry Centenary Research Foundation, and served the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute and the Sydney Children's Hospital Foundation, work that reflected a conviction that commercial success carries a civic obligation. He chaired the Australiana Fund and the Official Establishments Trust, guardianship of the material culture that tells our national story. He sat on the boards of the Australian Institute of Management, the Confederation of Australian Industry, and the Sydney Committee, and gave his time to the Young Presidents Organisation, a Stanford MBA connection that shaped his later work at Walton Enterprises, the boutique advisory firm he chaired and through which he counselled clients including PBL, Davids Holdings, Manildra, Pace Farms and GJ Coles. In 1977 he received the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal.
In 1998 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the community, in particular to public health administration and Australian heritage, a citation that captures the man well: commerce and community, held together without contradiction.
I knew John as a fellow board member and colleague on the Stanford Australia Association committee, where we served together for 33 years. Long after his own MBA years, John remained one of the Stanford Australia community's most committed supporters, giving generously of his time and standing to keep the alumni network strong and connected across generations. That kind of loyalty to an institution and its people says as much about a person as any boardroom title, and John carried it quietly and consistently, year after year.
Vale, John Walton. A career built on the belief that boardroom judgement and public service are not separate callings but the same one, and a friendship I was privileged to share for over three decades. Our thoughts are with his family and the many organisations and communities he served.

- Tony Surtees, AM  
President, Stanford Australia Association

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