ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Founder Trauma, Liquidation & Other Good Times
What happens when you spend more than a decade building the dream — and then have to let it die?
Rui Peng is the founder of Critical, an ambitious clean-tech company that set out to turn plastic waste into beautiful, useful building materials. He raised millions, built a factory, grew a team, survived a literal tornado, made plenty of questionable decisions along the way — and, recently, put the company into liquidation.
Hosted by Manawa Udy who has known Rui for more than 12 years, from well before Critical existed. And in a slightly ridiculous full-circle moment, after the company closed he came to work with me at Te Ngahere for six weeks — which gave us plenty of time to talk kaka, make RAGEBAIT content, and unpack what the hell just happened.
So this isn't a polished founder success story. It's a raw kōrero about ambition, identity, resilience, failure, money, ego, sacrifice, knowing when to stop — and what happens when the thing you've spent years building no longer exists.
We talk about what Rui got right, where he fucked it up, what the founder journey really cost him, what liquidation actually feels like from the inside, and the slightly terrifying question of what he might do next.
Because sometimes the business doesn't survive.
The founder does.
