The Other Stuff with internetVin

Reece Martin (https://reecemartin.ca/) is a writer, systems thinker, and investigator who spent a decade documenting public transit systems around the world, building one of the deepest bodies of work anywhere on how cities move. We quickly learn that his YouTube channel was never really about transit. It was an investigation into how society works, told through the infrastructure everyone uses an...

Matthias Wandel (https://www.youtube.com/@matthiaswandel) is an engineer, woodworker, and YouTuber who runs the most-viewed woodworking channel on YouTube. He was an early employee at Research In Motion, assigned employee number 13. Yacine (https://x.com/yacineMTB) is an engineer building autonomous drones. Both of them are tinkerers, explorers, and builders in their own right. They poke at the wo...

HudZah ( https://x.com/hud_zah ) is someone exploring what it means, and what it takes, to operate at the edge of what is possible. In this conversation, we traced HudZah's path from Riyadh to Sri Lanka to Waterloo. A childhood split across three countries, shaped by rationed wifi, a single HP desktop, and the discovery that what you build on a computer can change the world around you. We talked a...

Ahmed Saleh, Steven Yuen, and Gabriel O’Flaherty-Chan of Falcon ( https://falcon.so/ ). Falcon is a new design tool for curious designers. Their team is based in the West End of Toronto. In this episode, we explored the games, tools, and software that shaped each of us growing up, from Doom and Zelda to Macromedia Flash and KidPix, and how those early experiences rewired our understanding of what...

Tommy Trinh ( https://tommytrinh.me/ ) is a co-founder of New. In this episode, we explored Stewart Brand's pace layering diagram and the slow-moving forces underneath everything – culture, myths, values, and the narrative structures that have been recurring throughout the history of humankind. We kept finding the Epic of Gilgamesh in places we didn't expect: anime, wrestling, video games....

Andrew McLuhan ( https://x.com/amicusadastra ) is a poet, artist, and punk-rocker. In this conversation, we spent over three hours on five words: the medium is the message. Andrew explained why his grandfather saw the medium as an environment rather than just an instrument, and why environments shape us most when we’re not paying attention to them. We talked about the miracle of language—how one p...

Aidan Gomez ( https://aidangomez.ca/ ) is a computer scientist, co-author of the seminal paper ‘Attention Is All You Need,’ and the CEO of Cohere ( https://cohere.com/ ). In this episode, we discussed his upbringing in the cabin his grandfather built in Codrington, a small town North of Brighton, and the values that were instilled in him through his family. We explored his path from Codrington to...

Steph Ango ( https://stephango.com/ ), also known as Kepano, is a designer, entrepreneur, and the CEO of Obsidian ( https://obsidian.md/ ). In this episode, we discussed his journey from creating Winamp skins to leading Obsidian, and the fundamental patterns and inclinations that drive everything he explores and makes. We discussed Obsidian on multiple different dimensions, his deluxe chocolate ch...

Satish Kanwar ( https://x.com/skanwar ) is an entrepreneur, a geek, and a friend. In this episode, we explore what it means to come up in Scarborough, build something from nothing, experience a life changing exit, and still hold onto your original intentions. Along the way, we get into community as a force multiplier, how scenes form, how identify shifts under success, why culture needs new storie...

Alex Danco ( https://alexdanco.com/ ) is a writer and editor-at-large at Andreessen Horowitz whose work centers on gift culture, crowds, and how shared beliefs shape real-world outcomes. In this episode, we explore the deep mechanics of how people coordinate, why crowds form, how narratives drive behaviour, why perception becomes reality, and how leadership is ultimately the art of getting people...

Daniel Kuntz ( https://x.com/dankuntz ) is an artist, designer, and award-winning engineer. He is currently working on a keychain-sized digital companion known as The Little Guy. The Other Stuff is hosted by internetVin⁠, filmmaker and entrepreneur and possibly the most curious man on Earth. Produced by New. — Timestamps (00:00:00) Intro(00:05:40) The Little Guy and Digital Companions(00:24:55) De...

Greg Isenberg ( https://www.gregisenberg.com/ ) is the CEO of Late Checkout and an advisor for TikTok and Reddit. He's a serial entrepreneur who came up in Montreal, and a prominent voice on how to build successful businesses in the modern world. The Other Stuff is hosted by internetVin⁠, filmmaker and entrepreneur and possibly the most curious man on Earth. Produced by New. — Timestamps (00:0...

Michelle Jia (pronounced GEE-ah) is a Lecturer at the Stanford d .school and has worked with Prof. Michael Barry in ethnographic research and teaching for almost ten years, with a special focus on complex systems problems like Ocean Conservancy and Education Policy. Today she’s based in Toronto, Canada where she’s helping to co-create a design school focused on systems thinking and design for the...

Yacine ( https://x.com/yacineMTB ) is an engineer, artist, creator of dingboard and formerly at X and Stripe. This conversation explores several interconnected themes about technology, culture, and human agency. The discussion moves from 4chan's anonymous culture and its formative influence, through the importance of speed and friction reduction in software design, to the democratization of hardwa...

Benjamin Parry ( https://x.com/_benjaminparry ) is currently building The Toronto Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. A conversation that moves from Mark Carney's small modular reactor announcements to the fragmentary nature of social media discourse, exploring how different mediums shape our capacity for understanding complex realities. The discussion weaves between technical polic...

Tommy Trinh ( https://x.com/tommytrxnh ) is a co-founder of New. This episode does a deep dive into gaming progression from Dance Dance Revolution and rhythm games to MMORPGs like RuneScape and MapleStory, exploring virtual economies and online relationships. The conversation moves through the appeal of extreme endurance content creators, the psychology behind stunts from Criss Angel to Philippe P...

Gabriel O'Flaherty-Chan is a game developer, designer, and systems thinker, the creator of several games such as Chaotic Era, and now a co-founder of Falcon ( https://falcon.so/ ). To research his game about cities and transportation, Gabriel studies ancient Mesopotamia, the irrigation of the Tigris and Euphrates, and Dilmun, an island historians associate with Bahrain. The conversation connec...

Sid Kamalakara ( https://x.com/sid_srk ) is a machine learning researcher, and engineer who has worked on foundation models at Cohere and Runway. He is now the founder of Ambition ( https://ambition.inc/ ). The conversation begins with TunnelBear, a Toronto VPN, as an example of software shaped by the place that made it. They discuss how base models and post-training work, demonstrate a Socratic t...

Fabrice Blais-Savoie ( https://x.com/FabriceBS ) is a writer, researcher, and policy analyst focused on defense and innovation. The conversation is based on his essay arguing that Canada could use increased defense spending to strengthen its technology sector. They discuss the gap between Canada's defense budget and its allies, the IDEAS program, and why Canadian innovation funding often does...

Chris Spoke ( https://chrisspoke.com/ ) is a writer, urbanist, and real estate developer. The conversation frames housing and startups as related problems and discusses Toronto's land-use rules, which concentrate growth in a few areas while much of the city stays unchanged. Topics include why housing stagnation is common in Commonwealth countries, Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, food carts and r...

Matthew Jordan ( https://matthewjordan.ca/ ) is an explorer, historian, and urbanist. Most of the episode is a live map tour of Toronto, covering a sugar refinery on the waterfront, Little Norway Park, and the human-built Toronto Islands and Tommy Thompson Park. Matthew then discusses artificial intelligence, drawing on his background in cognitive science: the history of the field from 1956, debat...

Tom Schlesinger ( https://tomschlesinger.com/#top ) is a screenwriter, story coach, and teacher whose narrative expertise has shaped award-winning films and documentaries in North America and Europe. He describes seeing Midnight Cowboy at nineteen and deciding to work in film, and the people who shaped his approach, including screenwriter Waldo Salt and Joseph Campbell. Tom explains his view of st...

Rishi Kothari ( https://www.rishi.cx/ ) is an engineer, urbanist, and founder of arterial.design. The conversation is organized around the essay "The Housing Theory of Everything," which argues that housing shortages affect inequality, productivity, and other outcomes. They discuss the history of zoning, including Euclid v. Ambler, Japan's national zoning system, and special economic...

Benjamin Parry ( https://www.benparry.ca/ ) is a writer, systems thinker, and researcher. The conversation begins with recent Canadian government news: a new clerk of the Privy Council, an internal memo to public servants, and Bill C-5, which reduces internal trade barriers. Benjamin's main argument is that countries usually reform through crisis, with examples including Singapore, Estonia, So...

Greg Isenberg ( https://www.gregisenberg.com/ ) is a founder, investor, and community builder, and the CEO of Late Checkout. Much of the conversation is about video games and early internet culture. They discuss Super Mario and early 3D games, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, and the origins of competitive gaming through Counter-Strike, including mouse pads and mice, IRC channels, and status hierarchies in...