Things. Reasons: The independent show for Australian IT leaders (AI, Tech & IT Leadership)

Episode overview
AI adoption is the number one priority for Australian IT leaders, and that is exactly why the unglamorous work of replacing what no longer works keeps sliding down the list. Meanwhile the risk is growing, because AI is now finding and exploiting legacy weaknesses faster than any human team can. The Telstra outage on 8 July, traced to a defect the vendor had flagged since 2022, is what happens when technical debt is left at the bottom of the pile.
About the hosts
Jono Staff is CRO at ASE Group and Executive Director of WinDC, with more than 20 years in cloud infrastructure, managed services and critical infrastructure. Naran McClung leads Australia's leading Azure managed services practice as Executive, Azure at Macquarie Cloud Services, and thinks in cloud economics
and AI. In this rant cast they go without a guest and pull apart the question the industry keeps ducking: why are we still so bad at replacing the old things that no longer work?
What this episode covers
• The Telstra outage on 8 July, traced back to a timekeeping software defect the vendor had warned about since 2022, and why that is a technical debt story rather than a one-off
• Why 93% of organisations carry technical debt yet only 24% feel confident they can track it, and what that gap costs
• How AI is changing the maths on legacy kit: the largest Patch Tuesday on record at 570 vulnerabilities, and end-of-life systems accruing 218 new vulnerabilities every six months
• Whether AI is now the threat, the defence, or both, and why a runaway agent is a tooling failure rather than Skynet
• Sovereignty and token economics: what happens when the frontier model you built on gets pulled or triples in price, and why sovereign is being redefined
• Data centre scarcity in Australia, with 14 companies bidding on the last three megawatts of air-cooled capacity
• The closing argument: make technical debt a board-issued KPI so it can never be quietly deprioritised again
Why now
Adapt's latest survey of more than 2,400 Australian CIOs and IT leaders puts AI adoption as the number one priority. The risk is that everything else slides down the list while the attack surface grows. AI is now finding and exploiting legacy weaknesses faster than any human team can, which turns years of deferred maintenance into a live liability rather than a someday problem.
Who this episode is for
• CIOs, IT directors and heads of infrastructure balancing an AI mandate against ageing estate
• CISOs and security leaders watching vulnerability counts climb on end-of-life systems
• Boards and executives deciding how to fund and measure risk they cannot see
• MSP and cloud leaders advising customers on remediation, sovereignty and cost
Leave your anonymous confession here: https://thingsreasons.show/confessions/ 
Subscribe for new episodes every two weeks.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/things-reasons
Follow Naran's Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/things-reasons-newsletter-7371660254704701440/
Follow Jono's Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/things-reasons-newsletter-7371662467678023680/
Instagram: @things.reasons

In February 2026, roughly 285 billion US dollars fell off software valuations in 48 hours, on the theory that AI would gut per-seat SaaS. NinjaOne sells per-seat SaaS and is growing about 70 percent a year. 

About the guest 

Vic Guerrero runs channel and enterprise for NinjaOne across Asia Pacific. He has spent more than two decades in the channel, from Adobe in the late 1990s through to chief revenue officer at Jabra and nearly eight years at Orro Group before joining NinjaOne. He grew NinjaOne's APAC partner-led revenue 166 percent year on year on a deliberately selective model, and he may be the original source of the phrase things, reasons. 

What this episode covers 

Why NinjaOne runs almost all of its growth through the channel when going direct would be easier 


The selective, go-deep partner model, and why 25 to 30 partners can cover most of the ANZ market 


The question Vic uses to expose a weak vendor relationship: what do they actually do for you 


The SaaS apocalypse, and whether AI is a threat to platforms or a tailwind for consolidation 


What Vic learned at Adobe in the late 90s that he is deliberately applying now 


Two IT confessions, including the outage that accidentally killed an unprofitable contract 


Why now 

Every IT leader is building an FY27 plan against the same open question: how much to keep buying from SaaS platforms, and how much to try to build in-house with cheap models and AI agents. NinjaOne is a live test of the case for buying, a per-seat platform embedding AI and still compounding while the market debates whether SaaS is finished. For MSP owners and vendors, the channel thread is just as timely, because the recruit-wide playbook is under pressure. 

Who this episode is for 

MSP and IT services owners choosing vendors and planning FY27 


Channel and partner leaders inside technology vendors 


CIOs and IT directors weighing build versus buy on AI 


Anyone selling or buying per-seat SaaS as AI reshapes the stack 

Show notes 

The Quick Fire Three in this episode is supported by NinjaOne.

The IT industry is shedding jobs to cost-cutting, AI restructuring and the usual business cycles, and the man who chairs the Australian Men's Shed Association thinks the real cost, what it does to people's identity and purpose, is the thing nobody is talking about honestly. 

About the guest 

Luke Clifton spent nearly 15 years in senior leadership at Macquarie Technology Group, more than a decade of it running Macquarie Telecom, where he drove the SD-WAN transition and built out the cyber security and cloud practice for the mid-market. He stepped back from the operational role in late 2025 and is now Director of Macquarie Technology Operations, focused on governance, risk, partnerships and strategy. He also chairs the Australian Men's Shed Association, which is where his thinking on purpose, identity and men's mental health comes from. 

What this episode covers 

Why Luke stepped out of a decade-long operational role, and why he frames it as retiring into something rather than retiring from work. 


What it actually takes to move into board and NED work: more responsibility, less control, less pay, and a completely different skill set from running a P&L. 


The crisis of purpose Luke sees coming as AI restructures the IT workforce, and why men in particular tie too much of their identity to a title. 


Inside the Men's Shed movement: the origin story, the scale, and the Spanner in the Works health checks that have caught men mid heart attack. 



Practical advice for navigating AI disruption: more than one iron in the fire, broadening beyond a single specialism, and starting while you are still employed. 


Confessions of an IT Professional: a listener's story of a change in Washington DC that kept a US President's plane in the air for ten minutes, plus Luke's own confession. 


Quick Fire Three: dedicating people to a tech change, why results are the wrong thing to manage by, and the one gut check Luke uses on every partner. 


Why now 

The IT industry is shedding jobs through a mix of cost pressure, AI restructuring and ordinary business cycles, and the human cost is not being discussed honestly. Releasing during Men's Health Week, with its See Your GP theme, gives the show a reason to put the men's health thread front and centre. The board and NED angle is just as current, with a generation of senior tech leaders weighing up what their next decade looks like. 

Who this episode is for 

CIOs, CTOs and senior IT leaders thinking about board and NED roles as their next move. 


Technology executives navigating AI-driven restructures, in their own teams or their own careers. 


Anyone in tech leadership who has tied their identity to a title and is starting to wonder what comes next. 


Listeners who care about men's mental health and want a candid take from inside the industry. 

 
Hosts: Naran McClung & Jono Staff.
Follow Naran McClung: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naranmcclung/
Follow Jono Staff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanstaff/
Follow Things. Reasons.: https://www.linkedin.com/company/things-reasons/
Instagram / TikTok: @things.reasons
Enquiries: pru@thingsreasons.show

Twenty years ago, the IT professional's primary qualification was confidence. Nobody had the context to evaluate you. You showed up, tried a reboot, and if it worked, you were a genius. This is the episode where Jono Staff and Naran McClung look back honestly at how the job actually was, what changed, and where it is going. 

 

About This Episode 

A special edition with no guest. Two 20-year IT veterans reflecting on three distinct eras of the profession: the pre-SaaS field tech years, the cloud and SaaS shift that solved most of the old problems and created new ones, and the AI era that is moving faster than anything before it. 

 

What This Episode Covers 

What IT work looked like before cloud, before SaaS, and before anyone had decent documentation 


Why confidence was the most valuable skill a field tech could have in the early 2000s 


The specific disasters that happen when test and production environments meet unexpectedly 


How the MSP job changed when SaaS arrived and made most of the old technical problems someone else's problem 


Why the modern IT professional has to be commercially fluent in a way that was never expected before 


The rising cost of SaaS and AI tools, and what it means for IT budgets 


Where AI agents and automation are taking the profession in the next five years 


A call for listener confessions: the outages, the cover-ups, and the tickets that got closed before they were really fixed 


 

Why Now 

AI is reshaping the IT profession faster than cloud did, but the context for understanding that shift is rarely discussed honestly. This conversation provides it: what the job has been, what changed at each inflection point, and why it matters now. 

 

Who This Episode Is For 

IT professionals who built their careers before the cloud era and want to hear their experience reflected honestly 


MSP and managed service leaders thinking about how the profession is evolving 


CIOs and IT directors interested in a candid take on how the job has changed over two decades 


Anyone who has ever merged a test environment with production by accident 

Leave your anonymous confession here: https://thingsreasons.show/confessions/ 
Listen to The Hyperscalers Are Winning. Are You? | Rant Cast #2 | Ep. 9: https://youtu.be/uJkewa9GYV4
Subscribe for new episodes every two weeks.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/things-reasons
Follow Naran's Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/things-reasons-newsletter-7371660254704701440/
Follow Jono's Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/things-reasons-newsletter-7371662467678023680/
Instagram: @things.reasons

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In the launch episode of Things Reasons, Naran McClung and Jono Staff dive into the forces reshaping Australian IT leadership, from AI disruption to shifting enterprise strategy.
They explore how major players like Telstra are refocusing on core connectivity, what the rise of AI means for traditional consultancies, and how deals like CyberCX signal deeper changes across cybersecurity and the broader Australian tech landscape.
In this episode, we unpack:
Why Telstra's strategic reset could redefine its position in Australian IT
How AI is challenging traditional MSP and consulting business models
What's really behind the CyberCX acquisition — capability, brand, or talent
The impact of AI on talent pipelines, early careers, and the future of CIOs
Plus, Jono takes on the Quickfire Three — sharing leadership lessons, myths he's left behind, and how to identify true strategic partners in a rapidly changing tech environment.
👉 Tune in for candid, unfiltered perspectives on AI, enterprise technology, and the decisions shaping Australia's IT leaders.