Alarm bells

Good morning. A new job opportunity just opened for those of you seeking a real challenge. 

Ottawa announced it’s on the hunt to find the next CEO and President of Canada Post, our nation’s beleaguered postal service that loses a kajillion dollars every quarter. The captain who steps up to right the ship will be handsomely compensated; paid up to $674,700 a year. 

Be warned, one requirement for the role is experience in a “highly scrutinized unionized environment.” Or, put another way, ‘you better be ready to deal with a strike.’

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Markets: Canada’s main stock index fell for the third straight day yesterday as higher bond yields, rising Iran tensions, tariff uncertainty, and general September scaries took a toll on investor sentiment. Meanwhile, Shopify shares fell 5.4% after falling 7.8% on Tuesday.

Welcome to the AI era, where the employees of the fastest-growing companies in history are casually warning that their products may end civilization. 

Driving the news: Anthropic AI researcher and OpenAI alum Jacob Coxon resigned this week over concerns that frontier labs have lost control of new models, warning that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” 

Catch-up: Many senior researchers believe that AI models are nearing the point of self-improvement, where they no longer need humans to become more powerful. Once they can do that, so the theory goes, they could start refusing human commands.

Why it matters: It’s the people who are closest to this technology who are the most afraid of what it can do. Even with so many senior leaders sounding the alarm (including OpenAI and Anthropic’s own CEOs), the most advanced companies appear too afraid of falling behind one another — or ceding ground to China — to take their feet off the gas.  

Our take: The warnings about the dangers posed by this technology are growing louder by the day, and political pressure is mounting on AI companies to slow the pace of development. With trillions of dollars at stake, however, there’s certain to be serious pushback on that idea.—LA

Apple unveils the first-ever foldable iPhone. CEO John Ternus unveiled the iPhone Duo, Apple’s biggest device launch since the iPad and the most significant design change to the iPhone in its history. When unfolded, the Duo has the largest display ever on an iPhone at 7.6 inches (roughly the size of a passport), while the folded display is 90% of the size of the newest iPhone Pro. For anyone willing to spend ~$2,750 on a folding phone, the Duo will be available for preorders on October 16. (TechCrunch)

Unifor asks Ottawa to penalize companies that outsource to the U.S. Canada’s largest private sector union called on the feds to impose penalties on companies that send Canadian jobs and production to the U.S. to avoid tariffs. The Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act allows the attorney general to stop Canadian businesses from complying with any foreign policy that negatively impacts Canadian trade or commerce. (Unifor)

U.S. and Iran trade attacks on shipping vessels. In the largest wave of shipping attacks since the war began, Iran ​attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz yesterday after the U.S. hit five Iranian oil tankers — the renewed strikes sent oil prices past US$100. Tehran pledged to escalate its counterattacks, even as Donald Trump suggested the war would be over right after November's midterm elections. (Reuters)

📡 What else is on our radar: 

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A genetically modified pig kidney transplanted into a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital worked for a record-breaking 271 days before it failed and was removed. Since 2024, five such transplants have been carried out, with three of the organs lasting for more than eight months.

Why it matters: For years, researchers have explored modifying organs within an animal so that they won’t be rejected by the human body as a potential way to gain ground on the world’s drastically large organ donor shortage, with pigs pegged as the ideal (non-human) donors. Though definitely still years away as a viable practice, these recent developments show huge promise.

BMO is doing mo’ to take on challenger banks.

What happened: BMO said that it will soon be the first of Canada’s Big Five banks to offer stock, options, and ETF trading without commission fees through its BMO InvestorLine product — a play to attract younger clients who are increasingly driving investment growth.  

Why it’s happening: Zero-commission trading is a top offering from Canada’s challenger banks and digital brokerages, helping them win younger customers and become staples of the financial services sector. BMO, reading the tea leaves, said ‘two can play at that game.’  

Why it matters: This move could mark the beginning of the end of the first-mover advantage Canadian fintechs have enjoyed over legacy lenders. In combining their capital advantages with new-school offerings, banks could crush what has become a real thorn in their sides.

Zoom out: In other challenger bank news from this week, Scotiabank subsidiary Tangerine divulged plans to revamp its offerings to better compete with the likes of Wealthsimple. Meanwhile, Neo Financial laid off 10% of its workforce, with CEO Andrew Chau saying on LinkedIn, “We’re going to build fewer things faster, and build them exceptionally well.”—QH

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🇸🇬 US$2.8 million. New salary of Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, the highest compensation of any world leader. His recently bumped-up salary is part of a broader effort in Singapore to attract more high-performing workers to public office and reduce government corruption.

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