Waterloo Mafia

The people who shaped this place. The people building what comes next.

Waterloo legends

The quiet force behind 8VC.

A Hamilton kid who came to Waterloo for software engineering in 2003, found Peter Thiel’s hedge fund on the co-op job board, and went on to help build 8VC. An early backer of Anduril, Cognition, Quince and Ollama.

Read the profile in The Hard Part
2003Arrives at Waterloo for software engineering.Hamilton to the Valley.

Mike Lazaridis & Doug Fregin · RIM

The builders
behind BlackBerry.

Before it was BlackBerry, it was a student project. In 1984, Lazaridis and Fregin started Research In Motion while Lazaridis was still at Waterloo.

Read the Waterloo story

John Baker · D2L

A student’s idea.
A different way to learn.

John Baker started D2L in 1999 while studying systems design engineering at Waterloo. A company built around making learning better.

Read the Waterloo profile

Ted Livingston · Kik

From a co-op term
to a company of his own.

Co-op at BlackBerry gave Ted Livingston an early view of a mobile future. He went on to found Kik, carrying Waterloo into the next chapter.

Read the Waterloo profile

Build from Here

New writing on the people and ideas moving this place forward.

More on Substack

What’s being built now.

Projects taking shape. Companies finding their stride.

Company spotlight

Definite.

One view of the books.

Connecting a finance team’s systems and records so people and agents can work from the same model.

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Company spotlight

Automax.

A faster path to an appraisal.

Mobile property capture, appraisal software, and human review brought into one workflow.

Explore Automax

From the network

Next up.

What are you building?

A first demo. A new launch. A company finding its feet. Share your work with the Waterloo Mafia.

Share your project

Whose story should we tell next?

A founder, a researcher, a mentor, a first believer. The people behind the people belong here too.

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Still building?

Find people, advice, and introductions through the Waterloo Mafia app.

Put the Mafia to work