#270 Luke Anear: Burnout to CEO Again, Reinventing SafetyCulture as Mitti, and Why He's Flying Helicopters
The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit AgarwalShow Notes
This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers. Terms apply.
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Luke Anear is the Founder and CEO of Mitti, the global technology company formerly known as SafetyCulture. Founded in 2004, Mitti has grown into a US$1.6 billion company with 850+ employees, helping tens of thousands of organisations improve how work gets done. Today, it is expanding across AI, computer vision and insurance, building on more than 3.5 billion workplace images and an insurance business that has already written US$115 million+ in premiums.
After more than 20 years building the company, Luke stepped away from the CEO role completely exhausted. Eighteen months later, he’s back in the chair, has made more changes in five months than he says he did in the previous decade, and is rebuilding the business for the AI era.
In this candid conversation, Luke shares how dropping out of school and cycling through 18 jobs and businesses shaped him, including living in his car before making $42,000 in a single night, and why he regrets selling 28% of SafetyCulture for just $2 million. Vidit and Luke unpack the chaos of scaling from 25 to 300+ employees, why stepping away became “one of the best things that ever happened” to him, what he’s doing differently in his second stint as CEO, and his ambition to build Mitti into a $10 billion revenue business.
They also explore why AI is pushing software from horizontal to vertical, Mitti’s expansion beyond traditional SaaS, the surprising lesson Luke learned on a job site in Nepal, and the more personal side of a founder who flies helicopters, makes films and once took his children out of school to travel the world making documentaries together.
Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.
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This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers.
This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers.
This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers.
This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers.
This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers.