Who gets to be a founder, and why do so many women not see themselves in the story… even when they’re already doing the work.
In Part One of Two; Jen and Producer Nico sit down with Sam Garven, co-founder of AI HR platform Hello Canopy, to talk about what happens when someone who never planned to be a founder ends up building technology to fix the broken systems she saw every day in HR.
Sam talks about tripping into founding after years in environmental science, tech recruitment and people leadership; the clunky legacy tools HR teams are still expected to use; and why the best use of AI sits somewhere between full automation and doing everything manually. She also shares why existing privacy laws still apply the moment you hit send on sensitive employee data, even if the AI interface looks like a search box.
You’ll hear Sam talk about not recognising herself in the traditional founder archetype, why she needed someone else to reframe her “little side project” as a real venture, and how community, social capital and radical candour have shaped her journey. She shares why most career decisions are two-way doors, not irreversible life choices, and why tech succeeds only when the people closest to the problem help shape the solution.
It’s about keeping people at the centre of tech, and building an industry whose success is measured by the opportunities it creates for everyone, not by how much it can automate or replace.
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This is part one of two … there are BIG things to come in episode two.
