Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap: Bay Street's Billion-Dollar AI Panic

[serious] It's forty degrees on Bay Street this morning. The pavement's practically soft, GO trains are crawling — the Hamilton Spectator warned commuters could be, quote, 'derailed by extreme heat conditions' — and somewhere in one of those glass towers, a compliance officer at a Big Five bank just opened an email from Canada's top banking regulator. [curious] The subject line? A name they hadn't...

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: [laughing] Hydrate and observe. That's the whole show.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Tree Goop Could Power Your Next Battery

[curious] Picture this — a pulp and paper mill in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The kind of place that smells like wet wood and diesel. For decades, they've been making one thing: paper. But last week, someone in that mill looked at a vat of crude tall oil — basically tree sap leftovers — and thought... what if this gunk could help us refine lithium? [amused] Tree goop. Lithium batteries. The thing poweri...

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] Go build something wobbly and love it.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: America Can't Make a Board Game

[amused] So there's a guy named Jonathan Silva who imports Monopoly board games. And after tariffs hit, he thought — OK, fine, I'll just make them in America. How hard can it be? [curious] Let me guess. Very hard?...

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: [laughing] Mind the Gap. See you tomorrow.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The City That Rearranged The Furniture

[curious] So picture this. It's Thursday afternoon on King Street, middle of the World Cup, and a CBC reporter pulls up the city's traffic data expecting gridlock... and finds the opposite. [surprised] Fewer cars. More bikes. More people on transit. And nobody forced them....

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] This has been Mind the Gap. We're back tomorrow with fresh stories. Have a beautiful Sunday, everyone.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Car That Called The Cops

[excited] Two fifteen-year-olds, back seat of a car. No driver. They're allegedly drinking, shooting toy guns out the window. And the car — the car itself — calls the cops. [surprised] Hold on — the car snitched?...

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: [amused] Right, because conventional floating solar works beau

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Adobe Said Chug AI, Then Said Stop

[amused] Picture this. You're a product designer at Adobe. For two years, every all-hands, every Slack channel, every performance review has pounded the same drum — adopt AI, integrate AI, live and breathe AI. [playful] Let me guess — she finally drank the Kool-Aid....

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] See you Monday.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Four Places Draw The Line At Once

[reflective] Right now — this morning — nearly six hundred people in Toronto shelters are folding blankets, zipping bags, and hugging the volunteers who became family over the past twelve days. [warm] They're from Kasabonika Lake First Nation — an Oji-Cree community so remote you can only reach it by air. Wildfire pushed them out on June twenty-seventh. Today... they finally go home....

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: [laughing] Past lunch is a great start. See you tomorrow!

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Who Gets To Say Stop

[reflective] Right now — this morning — nearly six hundred people in Toronto shelters are folding blankets, zipping bags, and hugging the volunteers who became family over the past twelve days. [warm] They're from Kasabonika Lake First Nation — an Oji-Cree community so remote you can only reach it by air. Wildfire pushed them out on June twenty-seventh. Today... they finally go home....

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: [laughing] Past lunch is a great start. See you tomorrow!

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Machine That Discovers and Deceives

[curious] So picture this — a physicist feeds a machine-learning model millions of possible atomic structures, and the model spits back two compounds no human had ever tested. They synthesize them... and both superconduct. [excited] Not at minus two hundred and seventy degrees. Not in some exotic lab vacuum. At temperatures that are, quote, 'significantly closer to ambient conditions than anyone e...

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 discover something today.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Fed Chair Who Broke the Crystal Ball

[thoughtful] Last week — a terrace overlooking the Atlantic in Sintra, Portugal. A room packed with the world's most powerful central bankers. And a man steps to the podium for his very first major public appearance as Fed Chair... and tells them the crystal ball is broken. [curious] Not cracked. Not cloudy. Broken. As in — we are done pretending we can see what comes next....

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: [laughing] On that note — have a beautiful Tuesday, everybody.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.