Canadian tech is facing a black swan event: extremely rare and extremely severe. BetaKit investigates to help the ecosystem stay connected in isolation.

Black Swan

"Thank god we make a tool that helps me sleep."

InteraXon founder Ariel Garten joins to share insights gained from reading people's (anonymized) brainwaves during a pandemic.

Sponsored by Arbor. Produced with support from TWG.

InteraXon knows what the pandemic did to our brains | Black Swan #43

"Our expectations as consumers have fundamentally shifted. There's a new gold standard in town."

Retail Prophet Reilly Stephens joins to discuss how COVID has shifted retail strategy, which brands are succeeding, and how one app might be the frontline in the looming war between Shopify and Amazon.

Sponsored by Cisco Designed. Produced with support from TWG.

The new battlefront between Shopify and Amazon | Black Swan #44

"I will eat my shirt if they don't."

In celebration (?) of one year of Black Swan, co-hosts Douglas Soltys and Rob Kenedi are joined by producer Kattie Laur to answer listener questions and reflect on what's been learned from a COVID-focused podcast.

Sponsored by Cisco Designed. Produced with support from TWG.

Will Canadian tech regret the move to remote-first? (AMA episode) | Black Swan #45

"'I think General Assembly needs to get into e-commerce and food tech.' And that was the moment that changed everything."

General Assembly Pizza CEO and founder Ali Khan Lalani joins to describe his company's remarkable journey from pizza to Pizza-as-a-Service across North America.

Produced with support from TWG.

Black Swan Podcast

From pivot to IPO with Canada's pizza king | Black Swan #46

"We want to make a 10-year vision into a two-and-a-half-year vision with money."

Flinks founder and president Frédérick Lavoie joins to explain how his growing Montréal-based startup can become a North American FinTech leader with better tech and the right culture. 

Produced with support from TWG.

How Flinks plans to beat Plaid on its own turf | Black Swan #47

“Maybe it’s not quite good enough to just be a collision space. Maybe we have to add a new capability to the arsenal.”

Matthew Lombardi, new Managing Director of the new OneEleven, joins to discuss the tech hub’s new focus on talent upskilling, and what it means to run a “collision space” in the midst of Canada’s third wave.

Sponsored by Xero. Produced with support from TWG.

The new OneEleven's new focus | Black Swan #48

"We have a solution and they're not paying attention to this. You have zero acknowledgement from this government. Zero."

BookJane CEO and founder Curtis Khan explains why Ontario's vaccine rollout has been so bad, while expressing frustrations over the lack of support from the Ford government.

Sponsored by Xero. Produced with support from TWG.

Why won’t the Ontario government help BookJane vaccinate the province? | Black Swan #49

"Innovation and biotechnology was the star of the day."

Anne Woods (SVB) and Andrew Casey (BIOTECanada)join to discuss one of Canada's hottest sectors, and the impact of recent biotech commitments in the federal budget.

Sponsored by Xero. Produced with support from TWG.

How COVID changed Canada's biotech sector | Black Swan #50

"We've seen a lot of restaurants developing virtual brands."

Deliverect's Jerome Laredo and Noah Hayes explain how restaurants have become digital brands due to the pandemic, and why your favourite restaurant might not even be a restaurant.

Sponsored by Xero. Produced with support from TWG.

The startup powering pandemic food deliveries explains the rise of ghost kitchens | Black Swan #51

"I am shocked at how fast it's happening... If you're not in early, you're not in."

Matt Golden (Golden Ventures) and Paul Parisi (SVB) join to unpack a bonkers Q1 2021, and what rising numbers across the board might mean for Canadian tech.

Sponsored by Xero. Produced with support from TWG.

Why banks and VCs are optimistic about 2021 | Black Swan #52

"This year f*cking sucked. Let's review."

Past Black Swan guests return to share what's changed in the COVID year since their last appearance, and what to expect in 2021.

Produced with support from TWG.

The BetaKit Podcast Channel

Black Swan #33: Year from Hell, Year in Review

"One of the deepest pieces of why AccessNow exists is to find the thing that shifts a culture into wanting access for everyone. Our bet is that we can use tech to do that."

AccessNow founder & CEO Maayan Ziv joins to discuss why modern tech is still not designed with all users in mind, and what can be done to fix it.

Produced with support from TWG.

Black Swan #34: The perils of bad design

"I don't need you to have optimism, I just need you to have urgency."

Business management consultancy Raw Signal Group returns to share advice on how tech employees can approach the new year with their best foot forward (and how to spot companies pretending that nothing has changed).

Produced with support from TWG.

Black Swan #35: Pandemic Year Two Action Plan

"We've come to expect from company policies the norm established by public policies."

As the United States undergoes a contested transition of power, public policy expert Vass Bednar joins to discuss the decision Canada's most valuable company made to (finally) deplatform an outgoing foreign leader.

Produced with support from TWG.

Black Swan #36: Shopify's Deplatforming Policy

"Macro risks are hot right now."

Graeme Millen, Director, Technology Banking at Silicon Valley Bank, joins to explain why all the complicated conditions for true cleantech growth are currently aligned.

Produced with support from TWG.

Black Swan #37: A COVID-fuelled cleantech boom?

"Is class warfare good for startups?"

Following a... busy week in the markets, Black Swan producer Kattie Laur joins to ensure listener questions about stonks, Robinhood, FinTech, the future of Twitch, and Canada's shameful internet accessibility issues get answered.

Produced with support from TWG.

Black Swan #38: Good Wealthsimple, bad FinTech, ugly internet access (listener questions)

“If there’s ever been a 12-month period where the connection between online behaviour, online disinformation, and real-world harm, this is it.”

BuzzFeed Media Editor Craig Silverman joins to discuss the losing battle against social media misinformation (and disinformation), and how that's impacting the global fight against COVID-19.

Produced with support from TWG.

Black Swan 

A vaccine for lies | Black Swan #39

"There's this risk of being consumed by the journey of entrepreneurship to exclusion of everything else."

Entrepreneur mental wellness expert, Michael A. Freeman, M.D., joins to discuss how entrepreneurship amplifies certain mental traits (for good and bad), and steps founders can take to promote positive mental health during trying times.

Produced with support from TWG.

Proof that entrepreneurs really do think different | Black Swan #40

"What COVID did last year was reset expectations on everything. It reset the X and the Y-axis."

The Globe and Mail's Sean Silcoff and BetaKit Associate Editor Meagan Simpson join to discuss recent leadership turnover at Shopify, Top Hat, Real Ventures, FreshBooks, and more.

Produced with support from TWG.

Canadian tech's leadership turnover | Black Swan #41

"Once the pandemic hit, 50% of Canadians overnight said they wanted to do more of their transactions online."

Bōde Canada CEO Robert Price joins to explain how COVID-19 and the shift to remote work made some Canadian real estate markets red hot and others ice cold.

Sponsored by Arbor. Produced with support from TWG.

Can new tech make buying a home less terrible? | Black Swan #42

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