Free Lunch by The Peak

Sports is a big business, but it's changing dramatically in the era of streaming and the decline of the cable bundle. Old leagues are trying to adapt (see: Major League Baseball's controversial pitch clock), while new franchises pop seemingly out of nowhere (see: Formula One). Meanwhile, the sports media landscape is becoming more fragmented, with new players like Netflix and Apple competing aggressively for broadcasting rights.Adam Seaborn, sports media analyst and Head of Partnerships at Toronto-based media company Playmaker Capital, joins us on this episode to break down everything that's going on in the business of sports today, how it's being shaped by bigger trends in media and tech, and what's coming next. Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Follow Adam Seaborn on Twitter: @AHBSeaborn Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Inflation has (arguably) been the biggest economic story of the past year in Canada, so it's worth taking the time to really understand it. How is it calculated? What's contributing to it right now? And how do different sectors of the economy affect how prices in other sectors fluctuate? Turns out it's pretty complicated. Fortunately, Trevor Tombe, Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and a Research Fellow at The School of Public Policy, is here to explain all of that and more, along with where he sees inflation heading in the coming months.-----Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Trevor Tombe on Twitter: @trevortombe Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Markets are enjoying a surprisingly strong start to the year after a rough last-half of 2022. Inflation has fallen from its peaks, and more people are talking about a soft-landing—or even a "no-landing" scenario—for the economy. But there's good reason to think we aren't out of the woods yet.On this episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, BlackRock's Senior Strategist for North America ,Kurt Reiman, joins us to unpack what's happening in the economy, both in Canada and globally, and what it means for you. We cover: The state of play in markets right now. The unique factors acting on Canada's economy. Why a mild recession is still likely this year. Why it's going to be a struggle to get inflation back to 2%. The growing risk of high debt loads. How the Fed impacts Canada's macro conditions. What China's re-opening means for inflation. And what all this means for your portfolio. -----Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Canada's housing market is in a strange place right now. Prices are dropping, but affordability is the worst it's ever been. There's enormous unmet demand for homes, but the pace of new construction is falling and developers are going under. Buyers and sellers are in a holding pattern, waiting to see what central banks do next. Where do we go from here? On this episode, Daniel Foch joins us to break down what he's seeing in real estate markets across Canada, where he thinks prices are headed, and why our housing market is, to put it bluntly, such a mess.Daniel is a real estate analyst, investor, and host of the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast.-----Links: Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

In 2016 a long-time employee at the Publix grocery store chain in Atlanta cashed in over $1 million of the company's stock and retired early. That's because Publix employees are part of something called an employee ownership trust, which allows them to accumulate a stake in the business over time.Employee ownership trusts already exist in the US and UK, and their advocates say they improve job satisfaction, boost performance, and lead to secure retirements. But in Canada, where setting up such a trust is difficult and costly, the model is rare.Dan Skilleter, Director of Policy for Social Capital Partners, joins us to explain what Employee Ownership Trusts are, the details of how they work, and why he thinks they could reshape Canada's economy.-----Links: Read Social Capital Partners' report, "Building an employee ownership economy" More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

After soaring during the pandemic, tech companies big and small have spent the past year cutting costs and laying off thousands of workers. At the same time, unemployment is at a record low, job vacancies are high, and many non-tech businesses are complaining about a labour shortage.So what can we really learn about the broader economy from the tech winter we're experiencing now, and what impact will it have on Canada? April Fong, executive editor of The Logic, joins us to answer these questions and dig into what's next for Canada's tech sector.-----Links: Follow April on Twitter: @aprilfong More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Buying local food and produce is a big deal for a lot of Canadians—but so is the rising cost of groceries, and local options are often (though, as we'll find out in this episode, not always) more expensive. Why is that?In this episode, we dig into the supply chain of an Ontario baking business that relies on local suppliers and farmers for its products, and look at how the cost of doing business locally stacks up against big agricultural producers.Joining us to explain how the local agricultural supply chain works is Dawn Woodward, the owner of Evelyn's Crackers, a baking business that's been making nutrient-dense and delicious whole grain goods for farmers' markets since 2008, with a mission to support a regional grain economy by working with other bakers, millers and farmers.-----Links: Evelyn's Crackers on Instagram (@evelyns.crackers) More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Anyone who has dealt with Canada's healthcare system knows that it's under incredible strain. Part of that is because of the pandemic and the backlogs that piled up over the past three years. But many of the factors that led to the crisis we're now facing have been building up for much longer than that.Dr. Saad Ahmed, a family physician based out of Vancouver and lecturer at the University of Toronto's Department of Family & Community Medicine, joins us to break down how exactly our healthcare system works and explain the root causes of its biggest problems.-----Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe

Electric vehicles are going mainstream. Governments around the world are setting aggressive targets for EV adoption (Canada is aiming for 100% of light vehicles sold to be electric by 2035), and automakers are investing heavily in ramping up EV production to meet surging demand. But who is going to make all the vehicles and the all-important batteries that go into them?Erik Reed argues that Canada should, and joins us to break down what the EV supply chain looks like today and how Canada can fit into it. Erik is a part of the Boston Consulting Group's Industrial Goods and Climate & Sustainability practices and co-author of a recent BCG report, "Canada Has an EV Edge, If It Acts Now."-----Reading recommendations:Boston Consulting Group Report: Canada Has an EV Edge, If It Acts Now -----Links:• More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak (https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch)• Follow Taylor on Twitter @taylorscollon• Follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahbartnicka• Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter (https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe)

Between ChatGPT generating limericks in the style of George Costanza and Lensa turning your profile picture into a cartoon, AI seems to have finally broken into mainstream awareness in the past few months. But what's going on below the surface? How did the technology advance to this point? Who has been funding its development, and how does it actually work?We dig into all of those issues (and other very basic questions we had about the technology) in this conversation with Ryan Khurana, Chief of Staff at WOMBO [www.w.ai], a Generative AI for entertainment company whose app Dream [www.dream.ai] won the Play Store App of the Year in 2022.-----Book recommendations: Prediction Machines by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb Power and Prediction by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb Architects of Intelligence by Martin Ford Deep Learning by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, Aaron Courville -----Links: More episodes of Free Lunch by The Peak: https://readthepeak.com/shows/free-lunch Follow Taylor on Twitter: @taylorscollon Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sarahbartnicka Subscribe to The Peak's daily business newsletter: https://readthepeak.com/b/the-peak/subscribe