Welcome to the first episode of the BetaKit Podcast recorded live in 2024 (in our new studio, no less)!
Rob is out this week, trapped in the nightmare palace of his own New Year’s resolution, so joining us instead is BetaKit reporter Josh Scott. I truly enjoy torturing my employees, so I took Josh’s appearance this week as an opportunity to play the most dangerous game: a Battleship-styled back-and-forth whereby we attempt to stump each other with an escalating series of tech questions about what may come in 2024.
“We are so back.”
The BetaKit Podcast
Despite inventing this game, and springing it on Josh mere hours before recording, he somehow managed to beat me. Mostly by cheating: dropping a last-minute prompt for my Raptors takes post-trade that I’m already regretting.
When it came to questions about the forthcoming year in tech, however, we were evenly matched. In our 2023 review episode, Rob and I identified that tech—and its institutions—is in a period of transition. That liminal space lends itself well to uncertainty about what happens next.
Will 2024 continue to see more leadership turnover at the top of tech? Will a Canadian tech company IPO this year? Will a Canadian VC fund shut down or enter zombie status like OpenView did at the end of last year? Will our federal government replenish its dwindling trust battery and make a contribution to the innovation economy that matches its promises?
Those were just some of the questions forwarded on this week’s podcast, and I’m not ashamed to say I gave as good as I got. I’m not sure what your answers to these questions might be (I’m not 100 percent sure about my answers to these questions), but I am sure that I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. Drop us an email about your big tech questions for the year, along with any guest or topic requests, or perhaps additional challenges I can spring on the BetaKit editorial team.
For now, let’s dig in.
The BetaKit Podcast is sponsored by the Master of Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship at TMU.
Learn how Toronto Metropolitan University’s MEIE program can help accelerate your career or bring your startup idea to life.
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The BetaKit Podcast is hosted by Douglas Soltys & Rob Kenedi. Recorded at CreatorClub. Sponsored by MEIE at TMU. Feature image courtesy Towfiqu barbhuiya via Unsplash.