CanCon Podcast Ep. 74: Silicon Valley's harassment problem is Canada's problem, too

Allegations against Justin Caldbeck came to light last week in an article published by The Information when half a dozen women spoke up about the unwanted advances they had faced while discussing business with the well-known Silicon Valley VC. This type of behaviour towards women perpetrated by people in positions of power is not new to the tech world, and this story is not the only one of its kind in recent weeks (this episode of CanCon was recorded right before similar allegations appeared in the New York Times against 500 Startups Dave McClure, and former investor Chris Sacca. The CanCon podcast invited Huda Idrees, Founder & CEO of DotHealth and advocate for equality in tech, to give her thoughts on how the recent developments relate to Canada.

Patrick is finally back from his travels abroad, and a few minutes to catch the crew up on all that is new in the world of gadgets. Google Home has finally come to Canada, making it the first smart speaker to venture north of the border. Apple has released the beta version of its newest mobiles OS, iOS 11. Last but not least, the Nintendo SNES Classics will be hitting the shelves on September 29th, and Nintendo has promised that it will be producing “significantly more units” than they had for the NES Classic. Will the CanCon team actually be able to buy one?

After being a bit out of the loop on current events due to a heavy focus on event planning, the CanCon crew finally turns to a massive story that dropped two weeks ago: Amazon buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. The team wants to know, what is the longterm plan for this major acquisition? Should Walmart and Target and other bargain brands be as worried about this purchase as the market seems to be?

Tune in as CanCon’s podcast crew – Erin Bury, Managing Director of Eighty-Eight, Rob Kenedi, TWG’s Entrepreneur in Residence and host of the amazing #smallrooms podcast, Patrick O’Rourke, MobileSyrup Senior Editor, and Douglas Soltys, BetaKit Editor in Chief – talks about hardware and hard problems in Canada’s tech workspaces.

Have some hot takes on the topics that were covered? Maybe you want to suggest something for a future podcast! Perhaps you have a burning question about something you read in tech news that we didn’t cover. Email us, post a comment below with the answer or question, or better yet, rate CanCon 5-stars on iTunes and post your thoughts there.