The Weird Canadian

Episode Notes Gig workers, freelancers, creators, and expats are part of the modern economy, but many are still evaluated by lending systems designed for traditional payroll employment. In this episode, Cody talks with Tamara Laine, Founder & CEO of MPWR, about credit access, ethical AI in finance, and why alternative borrower data matters. Tamara explains MPWR’s approach to using AI agents to...

Episode Notes AI can change how cybersecurity teams monitor threats, respond to risk, and build more adaptive systems — but it is not a magic shield. In this episode, Cody talks with Bhaskar Sawant about where AI cybersecurity should actually start. The conversation, according to the public YouTube metadata, covers zero trust security, adaptive defense, responsible AI, privacy-preserving systems,...

Episode Notes You did everything right. So why does life in Canada still feel harder every year? In this standalone audio episode from The Weird Canadian, Cody makes a pointed argument about Canada’s affordability crisis: the problem is not only individual budgeting, one bad government, or one policy mistake. It is also about monopoly protection, cronyism, infrastructure neglect, public dependency...

Episode Notes AI filmmaking is changing the path from idea to finished story — and it may matter most for creators who do not want to wait for traditional gatekeepers. In this episode, Cody talks with Qiushi Zhang, writer-turned-founder and CEO of Leyline, an AI filmmaking platform for storytellers and creators. The conversation explores what AI video generation means for filmmakers, writers, crea...

Episode Notes More of the internet may be automated than most people realize. But if the web is filling with bots, fake accounts, and AI-driven noise, what should replace the broken trust layer? In this episode of The Weird Canadian, Cody talks with Richard Kersey about Chirpper, a proof-of-humanity social network built around human vouching, TrustChain reputation, and accountability without surve...

Episode Notes In this episode of The Weird Canadian, Cody sits down with Elliot Daigneault, host of The Right Call, for a wide-ranging conversation about Canada’s political, cultural, and institutional decline. The conversation begins with a blunt idea: Canadians may still believe they live in one of the best countries in the world, but the reality on the ground tells a more complicated story. Ell...

Episode Notes Derek Elliott is the newly elected Leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada, and he's taking over at the most turbulent moment in the party's history. The LPoC was deregistered by Elections Canada earlier this year, and Derek is now tasked with rebuilding a national political movement from the ground up. In this episode, we dig into Derek's journey from managing a convenience store...

Episode Notes AI can help you write, plan, sell, teach, and automate — but should it? Damien Schreurs is the founder of EasyTECH and host of Macpreneur. In this conversation, Cody and Damien talk about AI as a “brain simulator,” why the human needs to stay at the helm, and how solopreneurs can use AI without outsourcing judgment. Damien shares his path from physics and Fortune 500 R\&D to Mac...

Episode Notes AI is changing software engineering, but the real story is not as simple as “AI will replace developers.” In this episode, Cody sits down with Alex Ponomarev, founder of Volt and author of Thriving In Engineering, to talk about what AI actually changes inside software teams. Alex argues that most problems in software and AI are still people problems: understanding users, making good...

Episode Notes What if the human body is advanced hardware running outdated software? In this episode of The Weird Canadian, Cody Johnston sits down with Helen Muller from You, Me & Happiness to explore happiness, epigenetics, DNA expression, consciousness, energy work, AI, identity, rural community, and what it means to live with less chaos and more intention. Helen shares how her search for h...

Episode Notes Ali Christos spent 15 years in real estate before shifting into quantum hypnosis, QHHT/BQH, spiritual work, music, and conversations about personal truth. In this episode, Cody asks Ali the uncomfortable question directly: what do you say to people who think quantum hypnosis is just a sham? The conversation covers QHHT, Dolores Cannon, Beyond Quantum Healing, past-life regression, sk...

Episode Notes Nobody lies to their search bar. Every day, millions of people type their real fears, desires, and questions into a box with zero filter. And right now, AI is intercepting those answers before your brand ever shows up. In this episode, I sit down with Stephan Bajaio, co-founder of Conductor (the enterprise SEO platform behind FedEx, Uber, and Johns Hopkins), who scaled the company to...

Episode Notes Rural Canada is quietly losing the professionals that hold communities together — and nobody is talking about it. In this episode, Cody sits down with Albert Lin, Partner and CIO at Northview Law and Lead Investor at dCarbonVC, to unpack one of the most overlooked infrastructure crises in the country. Albert's path is unlike anyone else in the room: he started as a cancer research sc...

Episode Notes Is your business chatbot secretly driving customers away? In this episode of The Weird Canadian, we sit down with Martin Hills, a veteran software developer who has built complex risk systems for global banks like Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse. Now, as the founder of Infin8y, Martin is tackling one of the biggest problems in modern business: AI chatbots that lie. We discuss why sla...

Episode Notes In this episode, Jeff Burningham joins me to explore a question that feels more urgent every day: as AI gets smarter, what happens to us? This conversation goes beyond technology and into wisdom, identity, work, family, and the future of human relationships. We talk about why intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing, what AI may reveal about human nature, and why real-life comm...

Episode Notes Thunder Parley arrived in California at 18 years old with $50 and a one-way ticket. His guidance counselor told him he was too poor to go out of state. Two decades later, he built his career at Google, where colleagues called him "The Juggernaut" — because once he locked onto a broken system, he refused to quit until it was fixed. Now he's running for Governor of California...

Episode Notes Are you a victim of the economy, or are you making the wrong trade-offs? Former CIA Political Analyst Robert Choi joins The Weird Canadian to dismantle the "myth of the economic victim" and explain why the system wants you dependent. Robert spent years inside the CIA analyzing how power works, then served as Deputy Chief of HR at New York's MTA during COVID. Now he writes T...

Episode Notes Artificial intelligence is changing the future of work faster than we realize. Are AI skills the only way to save your career, or is AI replacing jobs completely? In this episode of The Weird Canadian, Cody sits down with Paul Slater, a former Microsoft Senior Director and co-founder of BillionMinds. Paul reveals why AI isn't just another software tool, it is a fundamental shift that...

Episode Notes A single phone call cost one victim $600,000. The terrifying part? They thought they were talking to their boss. In this episode of The Weird Canadian, we sit down with Robert Siciliano, a private investigator and cybersecurity expert with over 30 years of experience. Robert reveals exactly how AI voice cloning, deepfakes, and pig butchering scams are bypassing our digital defenses b...

Episode Notes In this episode of The Weird Canadian Podcast, I sit down with Joe Zeplin to talk about the truth about small business content and why so many business owners still struggle to turn content into consistent growth. We get into Joe’s path from a more traditional corporate environment into creator entrepreneurship, why it is not too late to start, the difference between posting randomly...

Episode Notes In this episode of The Weird Canadian, Cody sits down with Ginny Delaitre, founder of UX Marketing and CEO of VDS Digital Agency, for a conversation about vibe coding, vibe marketing, and why AI still cannot replace the human side of strategy. Ginny explains how AI can help founders and small businesses move faster when building tools, lead magnets, newsletters, and marketing systems...

Episode Notes In this episode of The Weird Canadian, I sit down with Dan Deevy for a long-form conversation about Star Trek, representation, Gaaays In Spaaace, the Galactic Diversity and Inclusion Con, and the future of space. Dan is an entertainment journalist, interviewer, and community builder whose work sits at the intersection of fandom, storytelling, identity, and cultural change. What start...

Episode Notes What does it take to survive in the entertainment industry for over four decades? This week on The Weird Canadian, Cody sits down with Brimstone—a true Renaissance man who went from child acting on Sesame Street to taking bumps in pro wrestling rings, to building The Grindhouse Radio into a syndicated podcast empire with millions of weekly listeners. Brimstone shares the brutal truth...

Episode Notes He went from running a restaurant to building a voice AI operating system from scratch — all by himself. Meet Joshua "Eli" Pancamo, the solo founder behind Loqui Auris. In this episode of The Weird Canadian, we sit down with Eli to discuss his incredible career pivot and the concept of "Brutalist AI Design." We explore why artificial intelligence shouldn't mimic h...

Episode Notes 8 out of 10 new e-commerce stores go bankrupt in their first year. Why? Because they rely on "Hope Marketing" instead of strategy. Today, we're fixing that. In this episode of The Weird Canadian, Cody sits down with Krisztian Kiraly, a digital marketing strategist and International Partnership Manager at OptiMonk. Krisztian breaks down why getting more traffic is a waste of...