Ted Hastings and Ted Livingston have a lot more in common than a name.
They both run large internet companies: Hastings is the former head of Rebellion Media and current CEO of Perk – headquartered in Austin with operations in Waterloo, Bangalore and other locations – and Livingston is the Founder and CEO of Kik Interactive.
They’re both major figures in Waterloo Region’s tech ecosystem. They’ve served on boards and advised companies in the region, and share their unique insights on the region’s tech ecosystem; which they’ll be doing again in a fireside chat at Waterloo Hacks on Friday night.
They have an audience in common: American teenagers. Kik reports that 40 per cent of U.S. teenagers use the chat app, and Perk targets the same demographic with their rewards and entertainment apps.
They have big numbers in common. Hastings raised the largest private equity financing in Canadian history at $160 million when he was President of Cyberplex. Livingston has led a Waterloo Region unicorn since the company behind WeChat — Tencent Holdings, the largest internet company in China — made a major investment in Kik.
Livingston boasts a bigger number still: in October he told Velocity Director Mike Kirkup in another fireside chat that when Kik came out “it was literally the fastest-growing thing in known human history up to that point in time. Disease had not spread faster. Information had not spread faster. Kik was the world-record holder in the history of humanity and that was amazing.” Hard to get much bigger than that.
Expect pearls like that one and more from Ted Hastings and Ted Livingston’s fireside chat, which we’ll be covering here on Tech News and broadcasting live on Periscope.
