Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap: $15 An Hour To Train Your Replacement

[curious] Picture this. Six AM, a warehouse in Austin, Texas. A woman straps on a motion capture suit — the kind you'd see on a movie set — and spends four hours picking up coffee mugs, folding towels, opening doors. Over and over. She's not rehearsing for a film. She's teaching a humanoid robot how to be human. [intrigued] And she's getting paid about fifteen bucks an hour to do it....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Mind the Gap is produced every morning for people who'd rather think than scroll. See you tomorrow.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Your Encryption Now Has An Expiration Date

[curious] Picture this — it's Thursday morning, and a cybersecurity engineer at a major Canadian bank opens Ars Technica over her coffee. Google has just quietly updated its estimate for when quantum computers can crack the encryption protecting... basically everything. The new date? 2029. [serious] Three years from now. Not twenty. Not 'someday.' Three....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [playful] Mind the gap.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The School With No Teacher

[curious] Picture this — a classroom. Eight-year-olds sit at desks. But there's no teacher at the front. No whiteboard. Just a tablet, an AI app, and two hours of core academics. Then the kids go outside and build things with their hands. [surprised] That's not a Black Mirror episode, Maya. That's an actual private school model in the U.S. right now. And CBC just asked the question that should ter...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Mind the Gap. See you Monday.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Coin-Sized Battery That Never Dies

[curious] Picture a battery the size of a coin. Now picture it running — continuously — for fifty years. No charging. No swapping. No sunset date. [excited] Beijing Betavolt says they've built exactly that. A nuclear battery using the decay of radioactive isotopes to generate electricity for half a century. And while the rest of us were arguing about phone charger cables......

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] And I'm Maya. Go start your Thursday. The ground is moving — might as well dance.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Four Dollar Gas And The Octopus Economy

Four dollars. That's the number blinking on gas station displays across America this morning. Four dollars a gallon — a number no one's seen since 2022. And here's the thing... the last time it hit four bucks, there was no active war in the Middle East. Now there is. And that changes everything — from what you pay at the pump, to who gets hired, who gets fired, and whether a city like Toronto can ...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: Be the octopus. I'm getting that on a mug. This has been Mind the Gap — see you tomorrow.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Plumbing Keeping AI From Melting

Picture this. A warehouse floor in northeast Calgary, Thursday afternoon. Workers at a company called CoolIT — they make liquid cooling systems for data centers — are watching a live stream from corporate. And then the number drops. Six point six billion dollars. U.S. company Vertiv just bought them. CBC called it one of Calgary's biggest tech deals ever. And the thing is... CoolIT doesn't make so...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: This has been Mind the Gap. See you Monday.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Canada's Five-Year IPO Drought Finally Breaks

Five years. That's how long it's been since a Canadian tech company went public. And then yesterday — not a fintech, not a SaaS play — a quantum computing startup called Xanadu broke the drought. And they didn't sneak in through the back door, Alex. The Globe and Mail reported Xanadu cross-listed on both the TSX and Nasdaq, and is on track to maintain a market capitalization of three billion dolla...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: And foundational. See you Monday, everyone!

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Salt-Sized Chip That Reads Your Mind

Picture a grain of salt. Just... one tiny crystal sitting on your fingertip. Now imagine it can read your thoughts. For over a year. Wirelessly. That's not science fiction. That's a paper published this week. A neural implant so small it literally rests on a grain of salt — powered by laser light that passes safely through tissue....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: Mind the Gap. See you tomorrow.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: **AGI Is Here. Iran Still Needs an App.**

Monday night, Lex Fridman leans into his microphone and asks Jensen Huang — the man whose company powers most of the world's AI — whether we've reached artificial general intelligence. And Huang doesn't hedge. Doesn't flinch. He just says it. Quote: 'I think we've achieved AGI.' Five words. Drops it like it's nothing....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: Mind the gap, friends.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Scalping Missiles Like Taylor Swift Tickets

Somewhere in San Francisco right now, someone is paying a forty percent premium — on the secondary market — for shares in a company that builds autonomous weapons systems. Not OpenAI. Not some hot new chatbot. A defence contractor. And Business Insider's headline literally compared it to buying Taylor Swift tickets. We're talking about Anduril — Palmer Luckey's defence tech startup — where the mar...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: So let me tie the bow on these four threads. A defence bank being born in Montreal. A global economy splitting between AI builders and fossil fuel burners. The co-creator

New episodes drop every weekday morning.