Jay is the Founder & CEO of Fruitbloom Canadian Resources, which facilitates technology-transfer partnerships from allied democracies into Canada across urban mining, rugged power, photonics, and sovereign compute. A Harvard history grad, he previously worked in strategy consulting at Bain, contributed to IPO and brand work at Rivian, and built investor collateral for EvenUp’s Series B.
01
Engage people with earnest curiosity. Trust them to be experts on their fields, and show up by doing some research of your own. The best parts of my story have come from saying "yes" to things outside my comfort zone: I wasn't ready for a French-immersion Cree JV gold mine. I wasn’t planning to build an online map of Indigenous place names. One led to the other.
02
Had my 7-year-old self not insisted on a mall trip that day, trusted my little gut, what would my life be? "You! With the boy! Stop!" The lithe, stubbly Brit ran over to us, introducing himself as the director of a movie, "with John Cusack." He told my parents that here, in the Eaton Centre in August 2000, was the kid he needed for the part: me. So I'm the kid in the elevator, in the devil costume. Irony: my casting in Serendipity being serendipitous.
03
Having given many devs at Rivian and EvenUp thoughtful feedback is a stealth superpower when it comes to getting Claude to make what I want. In a month, I have been able to replace almost all the software I pay for with my own versions. But you need to make informed design choices from the beginning. You are responsible for security, for interfaces, and for knowing your tools.
One thing to take away
Though pith nourishes us, we remember the juice.
