The BetaKit Podcast Channel
Episodes
How to fix Canada's Start-up Visa
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"Speed is of the essence. This is a super dynamic marketplace. Canada is losing entrepreneurs, we're losing the next generation of founders, and we ne...
Is BDC too big to change?
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"BDC is powerful in the sense that it can make or break a fund… And a lot of people are trying to close funds right now." In 2022, the federal go...
An insider's take on Canada's AI task force report
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"If we don't get our AI ducks in a row at some point and we miss that boat to shore up our industries right now, it's not really going to matter what ...
Why Y Combinator cut Canada out
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"It's important for the success of Y Combinator to see people investing at a very, very early stage. And if it means, to keep them happy so that they'...
TikTok and Grok are messes Canada can't clean up
26 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"You have just seen control of one of the most popular social media platforms in one of the most influential countries in the world switch from one fo...
The Canadian company solving AI's latency problem
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"How do I create the 'wow' moment for my end user? And slowness never creates the wow moment." PolarGrid founder and CEO Rade Kovacevic believes GenAI...
The future is a four-day workweek
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"The workweek will continue until morale improves." Jared Lindzon and Joe O'Connor's new book, Do More in Four: Why It's Time for a Shorter Workweek,...
The biggest tech questions of 2026
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"Maybe we will see the robots that we want in our lives in 2026. But be prepared: they will definitely be controlled by people in India with Xbox cont...
The biggest tech stories of 2025
29 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"2025 is the year that we committed to the bit, and all pretences went away." Special guest star Rob Kenedi (Decelerator) joins for The BetaKit Podcas...
Canada's job market sucks for Gen Z
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Can you imagine a quarter—25 percent—of Canada isn't sure if they'll be employed next year? That is a wild statistic." Kevin Kliman, president of...
Rogers v. Rogers is Canada's real-life Succession story
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"It seems irrational, and irrational behaviour is where drama lives, it's where comedy lives. It's where all the fun is." A communications tycoon buil...
Canada's AI ambitions with Minister Evan Solomon
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"It used to be that Silicon Valley was the kind of Mecca of the entrepreneur. What's happening is everyone has got the tools that used to be crowded i...
How OpenText went all-in on AI
29 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"The technology is there, and everyone loves cool technology, but it doesn't need to be a party trick. It needs to be something that's driving a meani...
It's 'Valley or Bust' for Canada's young entrepreneurs
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"In the beginning, we were like, 'this must be a scam' because with the way things move in Waterloo and Toronto, it seemed way too fast." A chance pit...
Dominion Dynamics' CEO thinks defence is a "generational opportunity" for Canadian entrepreneurs
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Too many American subs dominate this market. Eighty percent of what we buy is from American companies. We wanna reverse that. We wanna make 80 per...
Budget 2025: "cautiously optimistic"
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's a power-packed post-Budget panel podcast featuring a plethora of Canadian policy wonks! Vass Bednar (Canadian SHIELD Institute), Benjamin Bergen ...
What the AWS outage reveals about Canada's digital sovereignty
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"We were sleepwalking our way into this new economy, and we've had a bit of a wake-up call." Ian Rae, CEO of Aptum and a member of Minister Evan Solom...
Why Canada doesn't buy Canadian tech
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"If you're a founder in Canada, you have a playbook, which is: try to get outside of the country as soon as possible. Try to sell outside of the count...
Can Canada build its own social network?
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"It's one thing to say 'let's do this in a sovereign way.' It is a whole other to actually do it." Gander Social is attempting to do something that se...
Are Canadian entrepreneurs willing to let their old companies die?
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Don't talk to your customers because your customers will keep you in the place that you used to be." AI adoption is now an industry-wide mandate. It'...
Tailscale's CEO has an idea "worth billions" for AI startups
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"That's the literal term several CISOs have used with me unprompted: 'ticking time bomb.' There's no world in which this doesn't explode the way it's ...
Why Canada's defence tech sector is suddenly exploding
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"It actually allows us an opportunity to build sovereign capability and leapfrog to get our armed forces where they need to be by taking advantage of ...
Amber Mac wants parents to know their kids are talking to AI
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"There's a really good chance that a young person's parents—or even their friends—don't even know that this individual is building a relationship ...
Are Canadians ready for AI-powered life insurance?
07 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"We're going to find in the next year or two that the amount of leakage actually goes up quite a bit because I think the focus on AI is just moving re...
AI is changing startup math with Ripple Ventures' Matt Cohen
01 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" That's also quite daunting as an investor to be able to put money into something that is perfect for now, but will it last three to five years? Wi...
The former Meta employee trying to stop Canada's AI brain drain
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"A win for AXL is that, ten years from now, instead of nine of the top ten biggest and most successful companies in the world being on the West Coast ...
What can talking to AI teach us?
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"How is this thing—running in a data centre with Nvidia GPUs—understanding what I'm saying with such nuance and such depth?" Former DarwinAI CEO S...
How Canada can be a leader in space (and save the world)
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" This isn't just about doing something cool because space is the next frontier. This is a key domain for economics, for national security, sovereig...
The living history of Canadian tech with Phil Telio
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"History never stops. It's a living reality." In celebration of Startupfest's 15th anniversary, founder Phil Telio joins to discuss the origins of the...
'Canada's edge in applied AI' with Nvidia and Waabi leaders
21 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"The talent here is incredible, right? When we started faculty, I walk in the class and there's Jimmy Ba. Every time you guys train a neural network, ...
Why Canada's prime minister is talking about quantum tech with Xanadu's Christian Weedbrook
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"The current government is really plugged into what's needed." One step closer to quantum data centres with the launch of his company's advanced photo...
Ambition made in Canada with Shopify, Cohere, and Wealthsimple
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" It's kind of that 'Valley or bust' mentality which breaks the ecosystem and really hurts Canada." Harley Finkelstein (Shopify), Mike Katchen (Weal...
What keeps Bluesky's head of trust and safety up at night?
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" The company fascinates me… because they have such interesting concepts internally. One of them being 'treat the company as a future adversary,' ...
The stories of Canadian tech's Most Ambitious
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"I want to put ambition in people's hands. You say it doesn't exist—you're going to hold it, you're going to flip through it, you're going to see it...
Summer reading list: The Subversive Marketing Handbook
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" Subversiveness is a way of changing the system. And I think what we're seeing right now is that all systems are changing." Entrepreneur and Startu...
InBC's Jill Earthy knows Canadian VC "could be healthier"
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" That's what we wanna change, right? For future companies, more Canadian investors on the cap table so that we can see those benefits come back thr...
Amii CEO Cam Linke says Canada's AI strategy requires customers
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Be a customer of Canadian startups. This is the thing that every company needs. Nobody died from having too many customers." The CEO of the Alberta...
The Canadian engineer trying to fix the internet's original sin
26 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" Companies have spent a lot of time and money creating really great user experience for humans. And now there's kind of this race to create a reall...
Why Faire's co-founder wants to bring Silicon Valley's DNA to Canada
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" I think every ecosystem is different, but we can learn a lot from Silicon Valley, and we can merge what we have here." Faire co-founder and Chief ...
Half of the internet is bots and they're feeding you lies
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Bad actors are weaponizing AI faster than governments and enterprises are using AI to combat it." New data shows that more than half of all internet ...
2025's angel investor of the year has a plan for Canadian tech
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"I feel like doing this is one of the greatest gifts of my life. Working with these people energizes me." Joe Canavan, principal at Canavan Capital, i...
How does an online car retailer survive a trade war?
28 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"I think for any entrepreneur that's navigated the last five years, I don't know if there was a worse time to be building a company." Clutch found a n...
How Toronto Tech Week plans to host 10,000 people this June
21 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" Toronto Tech Week belongs to everyone. Toronto Tech Week is by definition a platform, and it succeeds or fails by the virtue of all the hosts and ...
Eric Migicovsky's crazy journey to relaunch Pebble
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" At the end of the day, I really wanted a Pebble. It didn't exist. No one was building anything remotely like it. So I, without really knowing what...
Katherine Homuth revisited
06 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" It's worth it. Because this deserves to live. We've gotten it far enough that this deserves to actually come to fruition. I don't think there is a...
Canadian foodtech has a scale-up problem
30 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" By the time these companies are ready for B and C [rounds], their cap tables are super clean, too. So it doesn't really make sense that we're not ...
Cohere commands attention, Apple Intelligence delays, plus a vibe coding PSA
23 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Apple won't use user data to develop and train AI. And Apple lives in a world where AI is going to be table stakes in any software or hardware moving...
An election primer on what Canadian innovators need
16 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"One of the things that I think we've got to critically think about in our country for the future is that we've got to begin using those dollars ef...
What is Build Canada trying to construct?
09 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"I don't know what Canadian DOGE is. You know what I know? That everyone is projecting both their hopes and fears onto this thing." Ex-Shopify VP Dani...
Rejecting the rejection of DEIA with AccessNow's Maayan Ziv
02 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"It feels like my inclusion was optional, and that is a scary message to be told. 'We were doing you a favour by letting you in the room.'" AccessNow ...
How is Canadian tech responding to the trade war?
23 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Once you've cornered that beaver, look out. We are a vicious beast." Rob and Douglas review the latest dispatches in Canada's impending trade war wit...
AI's new moat with Coveo's Louis Têtu
16 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" You're going to see Coveo starting to invest quite aggressively actually to be a market taker. We're not a disrupted company. We're a market taker...
Is Canada a secret video game powerhouse?
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Part of the magic of the games industry here is that it's not one thing." Canada must diversify its economy. Why not start with gaming? Entertainment...
Why Alistair Croll wants Canadian startups to be more evil
02 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" Subversiveness is a way of changing the system. And I think what we're seeing right now is that all systems are changing." Entrepreneur and Startu...
SRTX's Katherine Homuth wants to solve for everything
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"This is worth the pain of attempting to figure out how to do it. But attempting to figure out how to do it required us to basically rethink everythin...
Social media's midlife crisis with Amber Mac
19 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"It does make me increasingly nervous that one of them really wants to move to Mars and the other one has a legit bunker. Like, what are they prepa...
The biggest tech questions of 2025
12 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
" I'm sure if there's one takeaway here is that we can all trust Enron to solve the world's energy problems." "With a mere human-sized egg." A cle...
2025 tech predictions: embrace chaos
27 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Part of my prediction for 2025 is embracing or acknowledging that chaos reigns." AI agents. Political shenanigans. A Canadian tech acquisition that w...
The biggest tech stories of 2024
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"We are about to see a bunch of people who are powerful, successful, and feel like they know the best way to do things bring this approach into govern...
Lessons in leadership, hiring, and AI from SAAS NORTH 2024
08 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"SaaS was around, 'How do you automate business processes in order to empower humans?' AI is about, 'How can a machine do the process so that you need...
Mama don't take my Google Chrome away
01 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Browsers aren't a business. Browsers don't make money. These are loss leaders for other connected experiences because no one wants to pay for the win...
Why Sampler failed, according to its founder
24 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I'm using failure with intent today, because I don't want to be ashamed of saying 'failure.'" Marie Chevrier Schwartz, founder and former CEO of Samp...
Inovia's Chris Arsenault on the state of Canadian software
17 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Canada is hitting above its weight. It doesn't always feel like that." Inovia Capital CEO Chris Arsenault joins to share data and a long-term perspec...
Addressing Canada's speed of financial innovation
10 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Regrettably, I don't think we're very good, to be honest, at collaborating with FinTechs, or collaborating with the private sector more broadly on so...
Alexis Ohanian and Matt Damon can help Xatoms clean water around the world
03 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The 776 fellowship has connected us to so many opportunities that we would never be connected to [otherwise]." Xatoms co-founder Diana Virgovicova ex...
Clio's Jack Newton can build another Shopify without building like Shopify
27 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Our DNA is Canadian, but if it's going to help increase the odds that we can build a terrific company hiring out of the US or hiring elsewhere in Can...
Does Canada have the leverage to regulate Big Tech?
20 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"We just don't have the clout to be able to successfully push policy on top of these platforms without cooperation or partnership from other countries...
Can Canada successfully scale AI companies?
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The development of AI is racing ahead from most large corporations' ability to keep up with it. What does that mean? There's a nice gap there. There'...
Can Wealthsimple build Canada's largest financial institution?
06 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I think we're going to build the largest Canadian financial institution. That is a giant opportunity, and our focus on delivering that in Canada has ...
What Canada can learn from AI use in South Africa
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"How do we collect data so that we give it in the hands of the government in an efficient way? We're in a democratic country. Isn't this data supposed...
Evolving Canada's AI strategy with CIFAR's Elissa Strome
22 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"This is a technology that now is directly impacting society every day and is impacting people's lives. And if we're going to help continue its develo...
Pablo Srugo wanted to be "insanely rich." It killed his startup.
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"This was mine. This was done. I was going to be the next Steve Jobs, I was going to be rich—everything was happening. And now they took it away." A...
Harley Finkelstein wants Canadian entrepreneurs to ignore the "bullshit"
08 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Using Canada as an excuse for why you didn't get funding, you didn't get to hire the right person … I think that's bullshit." Shopify president Har...
AI roundtable: Hugging Face, Zapier, Tenstorrent (and more)
31 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Verticalized AI applications right now are available, right now accelerating industry after industry." AI is moving so fast it can be hard to keep up...
CEO roundtable: Shopify, Wealthsimple, Lightspeed, Koho, Ecobee
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The world is loopy. Everything is a cycle. Everything is a product of compounding changes." Summer is almost over, so hear from these Canadian tech l...
Canadian Web3 regulations & Coinbase's year in review
18 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I think it's really important for Canadians to speak to their public officials and remind them that this is an important industry. They should be tak...
What Vault's co-founder learned at Revolut
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"If you want to succeed and build an enduring and large business for Canadians, that has to be your focus. Nothing else. If you want to focus on Canad...
What feels true for VCs and founders with Sand Hill North's Ryan Henry
04 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"If you're an emerging manager on your first or second fund, you need to find winners. But realistically, the vast majority of funds here in Canada ar...
Why has developer hiring slowed? (AMA episode)
28 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"It was a seller's market during the pandemic … They were staffing up in the anticipation of growth that never actually materialized. It's now a buy...
Can video games teach kids math?
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I deeply want to solve the challenges in education. I think what we have is a current educational system is really not working." Mobius Math Club co-...
Québec is executing its innovation plan. Will it pay off?
14 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"To be competitive with American startups—or Israeli startups, or European startups—we need that push. That push … comes with a bureaucratic cos...
Why Gen X and Gen Z both want keyboards on their smartphone
06 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"When we unveiled the company and the product to the world, the hope was 'people are going to be excited.' Or maybe we're completely wrong." Can a rag...
This deep tech PE firm was drawn to Canada by the data
29 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"In Canada today … if you look at the inventory of 20,000 great technology companies, 60 percent of those have never met an investor. Because they'r...
How Web Summit Vancouver came to be with Casey Lau
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Is this Collision, is this RISE, is this Web Summit? I'm very confused." Web Summit co-host Casey Lau joins the podcast from the show floor of the la...
WWDC: Did Apple just kill your AI company?
15 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"OpenAI has nothing to lose and Apple had to move. They are the last player in this space, they had to do something." The gang reviews the latest anno...
How Dax Dasilva plans to get Lightspeed to $1 billion in revenue
09 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Fiscal '25 is the year we turn 20, and it's the year we cross a billion in revenue and we become a profitability story." Once again back in the CEO c...
Can this Canadian company make a splash in plant-based fish?
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"We're not in the business of selling food, we're in the business of behaviour change." New School Foods founder Chris Bryson joins to discuss his pla...
Xanadu's Christian Weedbrook is raising another $200 million to build a quantum data centre
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"We've been offered or at least suggested, 'Why don't you move your headquarters to the US?' The only way we'll move our headquarters outside of Toron...
Gradient Ventures' Darian Shirazi on where AI value will accrue
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I think that there are two types of investors right now. There are ones that are being thoughtful about it and steering clear of investments that cou...
Tobi Lütke finally comes on the podcast
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I think ambition is a problem… Canada is a go-for-bronze culture, and that sucks." Kinda. Presenting BetaKit chair Satish Kanwar's fireside chat an...
How Simple Ventures plans to fill a Canadian entrepreneurship gap
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"When you think about that shark American ethos, playing to win … but then also having the Canadian kindness, I think that's where Canada and Canadi...
Wealthsimple and Koho CEOs talk productivity, competition, and building
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I think it would be a mistake if we make Canada even less competitive at such an incredibly important moment in time for us to embrace competition an...
#Budget2024 emergency pod
21 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The reality is this government cannot execute." Sound the alarm! Matt Roberts (CMD Capital) and Ben Bergen (CCI) join for an emergency #Budget2024 po...
What made you first love tech?
13 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I think what we're trying to do here is maybe celebrate and acknowledge all pathways into tech. Whatever sparked the inspiration." Co-hosts Rob and D...
Is Québec Canada's quantum province?
06 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The quantum computer itself, the one that we would classify as sexy … has such a huge disruptive potential that we cannot really comprehend how muc...
Can video games teach kids math?
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"I deeply want to solve the challenges in education. I think what we have is a current educational system is really not working." Mobius Math Club co-...
Cory Doctorow's new tech crime thriller takes us back to the days of Yahoo!
23 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The thing that makes noir fiction noir is the detective is presented as an unlicensed cop who goes to the places the cops can't go and asks the quest...
Alexis Gay is (still) the funniest person in tech
18 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"One of the things that's funniest in tech is the complete and utter lack of self-awareness." The BetaKit Podcast is off for March Break. If you're an...
Float's CEO on bridging the spending and software divide
10 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The truth is we have a tremendous amount of comfort in the ambiguity of our vision." Float CEO and co-founder Rob Khazzam discusses the frustrations ...
How to fix SR&ED
01 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"SR&ED's big. SR&ED matters. But it's also a value statement of where we as a country want to go." CCI president Ben Bergen walks through the #CDNtech...