A curious human who happened to build some companies along the way.
This page is the long version. If you need the short one — for an intro, a panel, a program — the press kit has it ready to copy.
Building things
I co-founded and ran You.i TV, which grew into a global platform for TV and streaming apps before I sold it to HBO/AT&T in 2020. Before that: N-able Technologies, which went to SolarWinds, and Flick Software, which I started during the 2001 Ottawa tech meltdown from the top floor of my apartment.
I never stopped building. Right now that looks like physics simulations, a large world model with a robot arm attached, a game studio, and an AI companion for a van. Most of it lives under Experiment.
Giving back
Investing is the smallest part of this. Almost all of it is give-back: boards, mentoring, and sharing what I've learned so other founders can skip a few of the scars.
I've sat on the board of Invest Ottawa for sixteen years — the city's entrepreneur-led economic development organization — and on the board of Ottawa Unlimited, the partnership that ties Invest Ottawa, the Ottawa Board of Trade and Ottawa Tourism into one plan for the city. I mentor founders and talk about what I've learned, mostly so other people can skip a few of the scars I collected getting here. I do a bit of angel investing. I also serve on the Industry Advisory Board for the Bachelor of Entrepreneurship at Carleton's Sprott School of Business, and on the board of DistillerSR. The full list is under All of it.
Out in the world
I travel by any means that gets me somewhere I haven't been — a fifteen-hour summit day in the Rockies, a city I can't pronounce, a road that stopped being a road. The filter is simple: does the experience grow me, mentally, physically, emotionally? The van helps. It isn't the point.
What I care about
Equality — for everybody. It's the thing underneath the mentoring, the boards, the investing, and most of the arguments I'm willing to have.
I pick one word a year and try to live it. This year it's equanimity. Last year was fight for peace. The year before, just peace. You can probably see the direction.
Ask me about
- Selling a company
- Building with AI
- Game engines
- The Fermi paradox
- Ottawa's startup scene
- Travel that stretches you
- Golf