Tony Hasek

Your career path has been anything but linear, starting off as a paratrooper in the Canadian Armed Forces, then earning your degree in history at Innis, and immediately moving to what was then Czechoslovakia. You are a serial entrepreneur and inventor who clearly likes to build things from the ground up. What drives and guides you?

When I was 19, I loved the idea of starting businesses. The first thing I tried to do was import Australian beer to Canada. The venture didn’t work, because I ran up against the long arm of the government and protectionism, but it was a useful learning experience.

In 1990, the Berlin Wall fell. For me that was perfect timing. I had just graduated with a history degree in a world where anyone with a technology background had a leg up (so no jobs for me). My father, John, a Czech/Jewish refugee and an accomplished retired Canadian commando, had started an organization (Education for Democracy) to bring thousands of English speakers to Czechoslovakia. He asked me to run the Prague office. It was a way out of Canada’s recession, and a huge adventure.

Eventually my entrepreneurial side took over, and I started several businesses—from founding the first laundromat in the country to running a farm, and then an eventually thriving IT business. I realized that Innis and U of T had given me a great advantage. While I wasn’t a business or IT graduate, the rigour of study there taught me how to think. And that proved invaluable.

Some of the ventures did well, some of them didn’t, but eventually, at about the age of 51, I wound up in the “plus” column, having sold my IT business. I thought I’d work for some technology companies for a few years and then retire. Boy, was I wrong. I hadn’t ever really heard of ageism, but trust me, it’s a thing.

After almost two years of trying to find a job, I gave up. It was depression and a certain amount of desperation that led me back to my entrepreneurial roots. I knew that the only person who could get me out of that hole was me. So I identified a massive problem in technology and invented what has turned out to be a unique and useful solution.

Your current IT venture is Goldilock, your innovative cyber-security firm founded on a wild vision that the internet should be a safer place for everyone. How is Goldilock going to find the “just right” solution to fight the legions of bad actors on the internet, and why is that important to you?

The problem with the internet is the internet itself. While it has done incredible things, it really wasn’t developed with ample consideration for the bad side of human nature. We have become a completely “connected” society—and bad actors exploit that.

Goldilock allows companies, individuals, governments, or anyone to physically disconnect themselves from the internet. But the magic is that we don’t use the internet to trigger that disconnection. We have a full physical disconnection (not a software process) which can’t be overcome, and the way we control it is also practically impossible to compromise.

Our vision is that sensitive data, infrastructure, networks, medical machinery—even cars, refrigerators, and coffee machines—can be physically disconnected until the owner needs to connect them. And then they can disappear from the internet again.

I want people to enjoy all of the benefits of this beautifully connected world and yet be able to retreat to the beautifully disconnected world as well. I want to leave the enemies on the other side of the moat or firebreak, because I also believe that the safety of the internet is now inextricably entwined with the safety of freedom and democracy.

(Photo of Tony Hasek by Jana Volkova)