MarkSwi (@markswi) header
MarkSwi (@markswi) profile picture

Bringing the most culturally relevant people to Substack. Head of Partnerships, Canada at Substack. Ex-YouTube, Google, MTV, MuchMusic

Toronto
Joined March 2008
Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)Photo by MarkSwi (@markswi)
did you know that you can set a custom mouse cursor for your substack? we’re bringing back the joys and whimsy of the early world wide web. your substack is yours. 🌭 Publication Dashboard → Settings → Custom Cursor
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“Once upon a time... I was writing a book called The Handmaid’s Tale.” @MargaretAtwood on the origins of @pencanada and why its mission of defending imperilled writers is more vital than ever: pencanada.substack.com/p/onc…
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> Executive tries to use money to bully independent journalist into submission > Substack Defender takes up the case > wins with the journalist > Substack takes executive’s money, gives it to legal defense fund for independent journalists
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“The father I remember from my childhood was angry and violent, and the memories I have of him, kept me at a distance from him my whole life. But learning about what had happened to him when he was a boy at residential school unlocked some empathy and curiosity.” @connie_walker is a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award winning investigative journalist, and Cree from the Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan. Her Substack, launching as Canada marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, shares her work digging into survivor testimonies—records that face the threat of imminent destruction contactingconnie.substack.co…
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“‘We’re definitely NOT showing nipple,’ he says. We. I love when agents say ‘we’ about nudity.” Hollywood actor Kathleen Robertson, veteran of TV shows like Reacher and Beverly Hills 90210, on what it's like to shoot a sex scene with somebody you met twelve minutes ago — while dozens of crew members watch kathleenrobert7.substack.com…
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If you are a creator on @Patreon considering a new home for the long term, we would love to have you on @Substack Here are some resources that might help 🧵
1/ I'm joining @OpenAI to lead Creator Product after over 13 years since starting @Patreon. Coming with me are my favorite crew Drew Rowny and Shannon Ma, Patreon's (now former) Head of Product and Head of Engineering. We're going to build together with Creators at OpenAI and share early access to a new set of tools that I think will be critically valuable to Creators and their communities.
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Welcome @taylortomlinson to Substack and congrats on the launch of your new book
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"One patient came to me having tracked every metric imaginable—her glucose levels, her heart-rate variability, her biological age—and yet she couldn't tell me the last time she had been genuinely excited about something. She was treating her body as a system to be fine-tuned and monitored." Clinical psychiatrist Dr. Samantha Boardman @sambmd on how the longevity industry is missing a key thing that extends our lives—and makes them worth living drsamanthaboardman.substack.…
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The Pratt Signal is now a top 5 bestseller on Substack! That's where I get a chance to go into a lot more depth on some of the inside baseball with some of the big political things in motion. We have a LOT of big things cooking there & a lot more soon: spencerpratt.substack.com Thank you to all who have subscribed to support my work! The feedback has been amazing!
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🚨Much-requested new feature on Substack: tags and segments 🚨 Tags and segments make it easy to organize your subscriber list and reach specific parts of your audience. Whether it’s your most engaged readers, the people who attended your last event, or everyone in a particular state or country, you can now more easily engage with specific parts of your audience directly from your Substack dashboard.
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Melissa Auf der Maur @xMAdMx was bassist for Hole, toured with The Smashing Pumpkins, and wrote a memoir about her years in 90s rock. On her Substack she will be "unboxing memories, photographs, journals, playlists, pilgrimages, conversations, and stories” — including her vast archive of 15,000 photographs from her iconic life in music melissaaufdermaur.substack.c…
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We built the ability to do a @pangram scan into the @Substack app, because we’re sick of slop and we don’t want substack to turn into LinkedIn
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Today, Substack is launching an AI detection feature, via an integration with @pangram. Going forward, you’ll be able to scan posts, replies, and comments on the Substack app to see an estimate of how much of it was written by a human, or with AI assistance.
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Replying to @AnthropicAI
Interesting insight from this release: Canadian Claude usage per capita is 4.4 times greater than the global average. Canadians are building with AI. 🇨🇦
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Dear Toronto founders, Hampton’s going all in on in-person. I’m building an 8-person peer groups in Toronto. Must be founder or CEO and have $3M+ revenue/funding, or $10M+ exit. We have 1k+ members & do hundreds of irl events. Interested? Apply: joinhampton.com/join-to?utm_…
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"I make a living writing a Substack about startups and venture capital" - @EricNewcomer on his journey from Bloomberg to building an independent media empire
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What an incredible past two weeks it’s been for me on Substack. There are almost 3,000 of us in my Substack community now! Reached bestseller status and hit number 2 in rising finance names! My first post, “The 12 Layers of the AI Bottleneck,” went viral, with more than 10,000 readers and 150 likes. People have translated it into Korean and Chinese, and even folks at $NBIS have used it to illustrate where the next best play is. I also released my first deep dive, on one of the most popular names out there and my best performing stock, $SNDK. Yes, even after 6,500%, there’s so much more to come. This week I met with several leaders at both Anthropic and OpenAI. What an enriching experience it is to hear from the people building what I consider one of the most significant leaps in human evolution in the last 300 years. One conclusion I’m landing on, and I’m sorry to say it since it’s such a big topic here: Physical AI is not here yet. Build your stack around Agentic AI first, fewer moving parts, then apply it to the physical world. As a small, forward-looking position, sure. But not as my main investment theme. I treat my portfolio like a product roadmap. I focus on the next quarter to reach my goal, not on what’s coming down the line in 2-3 years. But the vision and the goal are always set on the future. Here’s what’s coming in the next two weeks: • A deep dive on $AAOI. A complicated company, high opportunity and high risk. • A deep dive on one of the most popular AI names out there, $NBIS, with a personal take from someone inside the company. It crossed the $300 ATH just a few days ago, can it go even higher? • My full portfolio review: entry timelines and % allocations over the last 12 months, in chronological order, which themes, why, and where I’m putting my money now. • A weekly chat where you can ask me anything in detail about any stock in the AI buildout and my investment strategy. Go check it out on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/rensub Let’s make a killing this cycle! LFG!!!
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The boys at @LetterlandLIVE nail it. When you have a chance to talk to a high value high intent audience, you take it.
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