Who were the first Australian technology entrepreneurs?

“The first tech company that I was involved with was a company called Future Technology Resources. Or For the Record. And that was in the early '90s. And we financed that ourselves and ultimately we backed it into a public listed company. But the most significant company was, of course, Aussie Mail, which Shaun Howard founded with the support of myself and Trevor Kennedy. And that was in '94. And at that time, there was no money available for tech at all. In fact, we showed Ozemail to a bunch of people and the internet was just getting going. And they turned it down. We had a very memorable meeting with Kerry Packer in which he dismissed the idea and said the internet— he wasn't impressed with the internet. It would only be used for gambling and porn. And I must say, when we got out of the meeting, We looked at each other and said, "Well, you know, even if he's right, it's still going to be a pretty big thing, isn't it?" Turnbull purchased a stake in the internet service provider Aussie Mail in 1994 for $500,000.”

“Bill Ferris. So Bill Ferris had pioneered venture capital in Australia and he had his own fund. But really, up until the dot-com crash, every single major technology company that started in Australia had been missed by the Australian venture capitalists.”

“While there were pioneering investors such as Allan Buckridge and Roger Allan, venture capital would remain limited in Australia until at least the 2000s. Matt Barry, founder and CEO of freelancer.com, argues that early Australian VCs struggled to discover and invest in tech startups that would go on to become successful.”