Steven Wang arrived in Canada at nine years old. His family's first nights were spent on a wet carpet in a Mississauga condo, his parents quietly asking each other: what did we get ourselves into?
Thirty years later, he's the CEO of Venture for Canada, a national charity on a mission to close the gap between the talent young Canadians have and the opportunities they can actually access.
In Episode 93 of the StartWell Podcast, recorded at StartWell's Toronto space, Wang sits down with host Qasim Virjee for a conversation that covers a lot of ground but always comes back to the same question: what does it actually take to unlock human potential?
It's a question Wang has approached from many angles. He's a Rhodes Scholar (Oxford), a Harvard Law graduate, a former M&A lawyer at elite New York firm Paul Weiss, and a Gates Foundation-backed social entrepreneur who built a talent pipeline for the social sector in Asia. None of it was a straight line, and he's honest about that.
What crystallized his move to Venture for Canada was a combination of the personal and the political. Watching his younger sister's generation navigate a bruising job market. Seeing his former law firm capitulate to political pressure in the United States. And returning to Canada after a decade abroad with a conviction that he could contribute something concrete.
"We don't have a talent issue in Canada," he tells Qasim. "It's an experience gap. A pathways gap."
The episode digs into what VFC is actually doing about that, from 5,000 annual student placements at startups and small businesses, to a Fellowship Academy focused on sales and AI skills for recent grads, to a growing Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition program that's reframing who gets to be a business owner in this country.
That last program is particularly timely. With three quarters of Canada's family-owned businesses planning to exit within the decade, Wang sees a generational opportunity and a risk. Without the right people stepping in, Canadian communities lose jobs, wealth, and economic identity to out-of-country buyers.
The conversation also gets into AI, not from a fear perspective, but from a practical one. Wang teaches AI governance at Harvard Law and the University of Toronto, and his take is characteristically nuanced: AI literacy matters, but so do judgment, adaptability, and the human skills that no model can replicate.
At its core, this is a conversation about what Canada can be. Wang believes the country is at an inflection point, and that this generation of young Canadians, given the right pathways, is exactly the one to meet it.
Episode 93 of the StartWell Podcast is available on YouTube and all major streaming platforms.
