Ben Thompson: CEO and Co-Founder, Employment Hero

Published 21st May, 2025.

Ben Thompson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Employment Hero — a global leader in employment management platforms valued at over A$2 billion. From bootstrapping a law firm to building a suite of businesses, and ultimately scaling Employment Hero to serve over 300,000 SMEs and 2 million+ employees worldwide, Ben has become one of the most enduring and impactful founders and leaders in Tech.

This is a rare, in-depth interview with Ben — going well beyond the headlines.

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Hosted by Vidit Agarwal, Founder of Curiosity Center and The High Flyers Podcast.

It’s now time to explore your curiosity.

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In this rare, long-form conversation, Ben opens up about:

• Growing up in Fairlight, moving to Armidale for boarding school at 15, and the hiking trips through Nepal and Tasmania that shaped his love of adventure.
• How watching his dad build a solo HR consulting firm inspired him to start a tech law practice instead of pursuing a corporate law career.
• Bootstrapping EI Legal and Employment Innovations, then founding Employment Hero — and what changed when he hit $1M ARR and realised he had to raise capital.
• Why Australia gets pay and performance wrong, and how he’s built equity-first incentive structures that favour long-term ownership over cash bonuses.
• The early days of Employment Hero: splitting it out from his other businesses and landing a pivotal distribution deal with ANZ Bank.
• The costly lessons from expanding into Southeast Asia, why cloning the Australian model failed, and how he’d now lead with product-led growth.
• How he defines product-market fit using CAC, churn, time-to-close and customer retention — and why PMF is never “done”.
• His views on founder-led sales in new markets, and how he adapted when he couldn’t travel due to his son’s rare disease — including scaling globally during COVID without boarding a single flight.
• How raising a child with complex medical needs reshaped his leadership, fuelled his belief in remote work, and led to launching the Hero Foundation.
• The role his wife plays as his closest advisor, sounding board and emotional anchor — and why he shares credit for everything with her.
• His use of “masterplans” and vision boards to stay grounded, set direction, and push through the hard days.
• Why he believes Australia lacks bold leadership — and how he’s thinking about company-building in a fast-moving, AI-first world.

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