Don Archibald argues that one of Canada&#x27;s greatest entrepreneurial success stories has been hiding in plain sight. While the country celebrates tech unicorns, Alberta&#x27;s independent energy sector has quietly produced dozens of billion-dollar companies. Drawing on more than three decades in the industry—including launching Cypress Energy after taking out a $75,000 second mortgage on his home—Archibald explains how the oilpatch built an entrepreneurial ecosystem that continues to shape Alberta today. The Hub is Canada’s fastest-growing independent digital news outlet. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get our latest videos: https://www.youtube.com/@TheHubCanada Subscribe to The Hub’s podcast feed to get our best content when you are on the go: https://tinyurl.com/3a7zpd7e (Apple) https://tinyurl.com/y8akmfn7 (Spotify) Want more Hub? Get a FREE 3-month trial membership on us: https://thehub.ca/free-trial/ Follow The Hub on X: https://x.com/thehubcanada?lang=en CREDITS: Falice Chin - Host, Producer, and Editor Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alberta has long produced an abundance of billion-dollar startups

Hub Podcasts

You're listening to Alberta Edge, a podcast from The Hub about the social, economic and political forces pulling the country west. I'm Felice Chin, The Hub's Alberta Bureau Chief. Canada loves celebrating a certain type of entrepreneurial success. They're called unicorns. They tend to be these billion-dollar tech startups. And we celebrate the founders' ability to scale up and make something out of nothing.

But here's an industry that has produced dozens of unicorns. I'm talking about the oil and gas sector in Alberta. So why do so few Canadians know about these stories? Today, I'm joined by Don Archibald, president of Cypress Energy. Don is, of course, one of the founding supporters of Alberta Edge. Hello, Don. Hello, Felice. Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming in.

And I know you were a bit hesitant to come on the show. But this is an important story to tell. So why don't we start there? Why do you think Canadians rarely think about oil and gas when they think about our country's successful business stories? Well, in short, Felice, I think they don't tend to be household names. They don't tend to be retail events like a Shopify or companies that people will be familiar with a brand name.

To a certain extent, I guess people aren't that familiar with them unless you're in the industry because they sort of fade away into the background. And as you'll hear in some of my comments, the life cycle of a lot of these companies is fairly short. Some, not so much. But a lot of them, the life cycle is fairly short, i.e., five to ten years.

Alberta has long produced an abundance of billion-dollar startups

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Alberta has long produced an abundance of billion-dollar startups

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.