Been a busy day today. Finally able to sit and express some gratitude.
First, I’d like to talk about Taylor Owen.
About two or three weeks into our adventure on Gander, our Founding Advisor, Peter Wall, managed to schedule a meeting with Taylor thanks to some old journalism connections.
If I’m honest, I had only vaguely looked into who he was, and what he’s done (when you’re running a startup at 1000km/hr, sometimes you have to… ‘wing it’).
Five minutes into our conversation, my eyes were opened: in front of me was one of the leading minds in Canada on media ethics, and he knew everything there was to know about disinformation, the outright attack on Canadian journalism, and the social media habits of Canadians of all ages.
In fact, he’d spent years helping draft bills to help protect us all.
But more than that, he immediately saw the potential in what we’re doing. He offered to provide us with every bit of insight he could give to help us design our policies, and give Gander users a fighting chance in the face of the bad actors working to dismantle our democracies and divide us.
And for all of that, I am endlessly grateful.
But you know what? He also didn’t back down when I came in for a hug the first time we met in person.
Twice.
I’m grateful for that, too.
Thank you, Taylor.
