Jim Balsillie

Again, it's not an absolute zero and 100, but directionally, that was what we were dealing with.

So you've got the direction, you've gone sort of, you know, as Jim Balsillie used to always tell us at BlackBerry, I want you to be an inch wide and a mile deep, not a mile wide and an inch deep.

You know, really trying to understand the depths of somebody's business and how you come together.

Like kind of that's ringing in my ears.

It's important to emphasize who's saying this, who this critique is coming from.

Jim Balsillie.

He's the bloke who was in charge of BlackBerry when it was the great Canadian... success story.

So he knows a thing or two about tech companies and profitability and so on.

I mean, I think the commonality is in these driven CEO, these driven business people who seem to think that Leaving bodies in their wake is an acceptable thing to do to get to the goal, right? And the goal is what? To make a fucking shitload of money, right? To be, you know, to be the biggest CEO or have the biggest company or whatever the fuck, you know? So I think that commonality is very there.

I also think that both movies have a person who has a soul, right? Like, Balsillie's the guy in...

in Blackberry who has the soul, the guy who actually cares about the technology.

And then Garfield's characters, the guy who probably has the soul who actually gave a shit about Mark.

Because from what I gather, that's kind of the opposite, right? It's about somebody who wants to make the good tech that helps and isn't a greedy asshole? Is that what it is? I mean, I

think for

you talking about Balsillie, yeah, I think so.

No, I mean Steve Jobs,

Do

you know they had a specialty concert in Toronto on November 7th, 2007? Jim Basile? Or is it Jim Basile? Jim

Basile, yeah.

Jim Basile.

From RIM, or like Research Emotion.

Yeah.

C'est pas-- C'est très sincère.

Moi, je suis pas un gars comme-- Déjà, je suis pas Jim Balsillie.

Let's get it out of the way, c'est le contraire.

Moi, je suis un gars civique.

I know, I know.

We're going to have to get on Jim Basile, the only billionaire I know, but the only one I like.

I mean, Jim's always saying, like, we invest tons of public money and then we give the IP.

To the Americans, why don't we build? So let's talk.

And it's actually very funny, believe it or not.

The guy who plays Jim Balsillie, who I actually knew who Jim Balsillie was because he tried to purchase an NHL team, which they do that in the movie as well.

But he's in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

So I watched that and apple single-handedly killed that company man now they still exist uh but they don't make phones anymore and it just destroyed that part of the company which was their biggest like money making you know part of the company um because they came out with the fucking iphone and we're like

Oh my God, it was scar- it was funny.

So what happened was Jim Balsillie had hired me to, to be a consultant.

He was trying to get a franchise in Hamilton and trying to move Phoenix, so he hired me to do sort of a consulting gig with him to put together a, a package as to how to move a franchise from Phoenix to Hamilton, and how it would all work, and to put together a package.

And Bob lost it because I didn't tell him that I was doing it, and he heard about it through the grapevine, so he snapped on that, which I thought was, "Oh, what is this?" So I get, I get on this interview and he starts, and I'm thinking, "What?" I'm standing on the side of a highway in PEI talking to him on the phone because we're out to dinner, and I end up on the side of the highway, cars ripping by, and he's screaming and hollering, and I'm screaming and hollering.

But it's bizarre how many people still bring that up to me.

It is crazy how many people still talk about that interview.

Well, as a coda, uh, you've alluded to it a bit, but I do wanna ask about your current relationship with Bob McCown, and if you maintain any kind of current relationship with Jim Balsillie.

None with, uh, Balsillie.