Get Mic’d – Episode 6: How to Build a Unicorn Startup with Christian Weedbrook, Xanadu AI – Transcript

Below is a transcription of Get Mic’d Podcast Episode 6, hosted by Katie Zeppieri and features Christian Weedbrook, Founder and CEO of Xanadu. Listen to the full episode here.

Christian Weedbrook is the CEO and Founder of Xanadu Quantum Technologies, a quantum technology company building fault-tolerant quantum computers using light. Over the last 15 years, he has been at the forefront of bringing quantum technology to the world through his research and leadership in academia, government, and industry. Christian holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Queensland and has held postdoc positions at MIT and the University of Toronto. You can connect with Christian Weedbrook: on LinkedIn. 

Katie Zeppieri: Christian, welcome to Get Mic’d. 

Christian Weedbrook: Thank you for having me. 

Katie: Thanks so much for being here. I’m looking forward to this conversation. You’re the CEO and founder of Xanadu, and Xanadu is working to bring the first commercially available quantum computers to market. Now, for those listening who don’t know much about quantum computing. How would you define quantum computing? How would you sort of break that down? And why is it important?

Christian: I get asked that question quite a bit. And I always revert to looking at the name: you got quantum, and you’ve got a computer. So the first thing I say to people is that it’s still a computer and sounds magical, but it’s still a computer. And we’re very familiar with computers. The idea is why the word quantum essentially means now using properties of quantum physics. 

You can think of quantum physics as if you zoom in on anything: our body, this table, you’ll get to keep zooming in, and you’ll get to the atoms and electrons. Those things at the atomic level have very different properties, and we use them. So, we build quantum computers out of atoms, electrons, and photons. And we can do some cool things with that to the second-party question. These incredible things, you know, are very important things like drug discovery, material design, finance, and artificial intelligence, which we hear about daily. And really, the simple idea is that whatever you can do for specific problems, you can do much faster if you use a quantum computer.

Katie: Now, how did you get into this space? I don’t think people accidentally fall into quantum computing. You have a doctorate in quantum information theory from the University of Queensland. What got you interested in quantum computing?

Christian: So, when I did my undergrad, I always loved mathematics. As I did more courses, I moved into applied math, which got very applied. It became physics. So, as an undergrad, I studied math and physics. After that, I thought I would see if I could get a master’s degree. It’s called an honors in Australia. Then, I did that in quantum security. It’s being applied very much, but it has to do with quantum physics. 

Then, for my PhD, I was looking at quantum computing using photons or light, which is a natural progression on the academic side. Still, before that, as a teenager, I would devour any book on businesses and biographies and things of that nature. So I was always kind of hoping that it’d be fun to be kind of like a, you know, at the start of an industry like Henry Ford Rockefeller, and those, you know, people from over 100 years ago, how do you be an entrepreneur but where you’ve got a chance to be part of a vast industry. So, those two things came together. And then, along with others at Xanadu, particularly the early, say, first 50 or more hires, we all came from academia. So, it was a case of whether we could all work together to commercialize the research we’re a part of.

Katie: Xanadu has launched the world’s first cloud-deployed photonic quantum computer. I’m hearing that there are potentially a couple of different types of quantum computers, and you specialize in photonics. Can you describe the difference for us? 

Christian: One place to start, as the main category, is building a quantum computer. You can break them into two main large groups. One is either using photons, like we’re doing it Xanadu, or the second one, you can use electrons. Now, in the last 50-60 years, we’ve become very familiar with electrons—that’s electronics. The other side is photonics. And you know, our computers are made of electronics, phones, etc. 

And so you can do quantum versions of both. So, as mentioned, we’ve been using the quantum photonics version for hours. And there’s, you know, as you said, we have the world’s first and still only publicly available photonic quantum cloud. And then there’s kind of the other bucket, and the other bucket has been around historically longer. And you are getting great results. You can think of companies like IBM, Google, Rigetti, and Amazon, many of which use this electronic-based approach. Now, all of them have the potential to be the winners. We think there’ll be a few winners. Each of them has its pros and cons as well, and it’s a very, very difficult thing to build this quantum computer.

Katie: You mentioned this desire to be at the forefront of something, to create a category, to build something that nobody’s built before, and that takes a tremendous amount of courage. And you need to be bold; you fundamentally have to have, I believe, a lot of self-belief to take on a challenge like that. Was there a time in your past when you developed those entrepreneurial chops and felt like, you know, what, if I have an idea, I believe I can bring it to action?

Christian: Yeah, it’s probably, you know, always a combination of nature and nurture, I guess. And, you know, going back to when I was 12 or 13, I would discover these books on Henry Ford Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and people have done, you know, massive, ambitious things and built huge companies. And when I read these things, it felt very natural. To me, it felt like home. It felt like I could do that. Whether I could do that or not that’s a whole different story. 

But it resonated with me, much like if someone picks up a guitar for the first time and just feels like home, very natural. So I don’t know, it’s a bit innate, I guess. And the more I read, the more I would learn, and it’s been decades now, learning every day about this sort of stuff. Now, I get a chance to put it into practice. So it just felt very natural. It’s still very, very difficult. But I think entrepreneurs have, you know, you know, a higher risk tolerance. And, you know, it’s not like I set out to have this risk tolerance. I think it was an eight. But, honestly, the central theme is just following what you enjoy doing. And you also want that overlap between what you enjoy and what you’re good at. 

Katie: Talk to us about the beginnings of Xanadu because, for many entrepreneurs, the first idea is different from the one that becomes their company, which turns out to be successful. Often, there’s trial and error. I understand that you were working on startups when you first began, so take us to that starting place when you first had the concept and how you worked to get the idea off the ground.

Christian: I always hoped that this love of entrepreneurship, the research I participated in, and quantum computing would merge. And I remember reading about this; it could have been ten years ago or so when a quantum company was funded. And it’s like I just stood there and still remember sitting in my chair. Wow, they got, you know, I think $200,000 or a couple of million like those two tranches. And so, like, that’s incredible. I didn’t know you could get that for something still far away, and You’re right. 

I had two companies now overlapping over a year. The first one that started was called Cipher Q, which was also part of my research trying to commercialize quantum security. So, using quantum physics gives you a very high level of protection that traditional methods cannot provide. And then, when I was trying to raise money, I got some money. I got some money from Boeing, I think it was, and U of T let me stay there an extra year because I was a postdoc at U of T. The other impetus, I guess, was the fact that my postdoc could run out. Typically, you do a postdoc, which I did at U of T, and I did one of those and two in Boston. And you are encouraged to leave the university, you know, you can’t stay. You’re supposed to try and get a job as a professor at that point. 

And I love Toronto. I fell in love with it and wanted to stay. So it’s like, well, I got nothing, you know, I want to stay in the city. So, let’s try to merge these things. Let’s try to achieve a startup. I did the Cipher Q but got some funding to pay the rent. There were times when I got some eviction notices. But it didn’t bother me or feel risky because they enjoyed and loved my work. I had a lot of freedom as well. I think that’s a characteristic of entrepreneurs: you want to be your boss, you know, as much as possible. 

So, I heard a lot from investors while trying to raise money for Cipher Q about quantum computing. They would say, Hey, are you interested in it? Can you also do A? Do you know much about quantum computing? I said, Yeah, that was part of my research as well, my field of study. So, over time, if you consider the investor the customer, the customer said we would give you money for another idea. So I then started Xanadu in 2016, wrote a whitepaper about the vision and went back to the same investors, and they were interested. 

I still remember getting the first check and kind of wire for the first amount of funding, which was $2 million. And I would, you know, the investors said it would get wired on a particular day, let’s say Monday, and I will be checking Monday. And then when it goes in, I just couldn’t believe that amount of money was in a bank account, and you’d refresh and steal that. And, you know, the last round that we raised was 100 million, the one before that was 100 million, so 200 million, and the previous two raises. 

We’ve received nearly $300 million in VCs and government grants. And that money still seems smaller than that first $2 million. It was just amazing. So, I still have one of my vivid memories of my early days there. Once we have the money, we can start hiring people. And that was a fun process, too. I knew the people in my field I was a part of and could reach out to them. Also, there are some great early hires from U of T. It just went from there and a fascinating different time to what it is now, you know, as the company matures and things change, but it’s still a lot of fun. 

Katie:  You have raised an impressive amount of money thus far. And it’s interesting to hear you talk about your first hobby, bowling. For entrepreneurs, that is a scary leap to make because up until that point, somebody writes you a check. It’s just an idea in your head that you’re trying to convince other people to believe in. Can you describe what that process is like, and maybe give us any tips you have for convincing someone to believe in your company idea?

Christian: So our last round was Series C, which was 100 million and Series B before that was also 100 million, but I still have this number 143 in my head. And we went through 143 VCs to get to that first one that says yes. So that, to me, is the best example. Though you just keep trying very hard until you get that yes, there has to be someone that says yes. Or, in my case, going from Cipher Q to Xanadu and then giving you a tip, tell me if you did this, and I will find you. 

Now, I wouldn’t advise anyone to do something for the money. You know, in my case, I enjoyed both quantum security and quantum computing. But honestly, in our experience, it’s just a numbers game. You must go through as many as possible not give up. Keep a spreadsheet of everyone you talk to and the 143. I should mention that some were very quick nos, some didn’t get back, and then there were quite a few second or third meetings, and they said no. So it’s much more than, say, 143 interactions per se. 

So yeah, how do you fail if you don’t give up? That’s how I would look at it now. It doesn’t apply in every scenario. As a teenager, I would love to start my own company, which is ridiculous. And they failed. But, you know, and Xanadu can still fail, you know, you always have to have that, you know, one of our values is impermanence. And that should be. I think it sometimes feels like a fundamental law of nature because nothing lasts, and you know, we end up dying. 

And there’s nothing we can do about that time that is something that we don’t know. There’s that funny quote, maybe by Charlie Munger, who said, I wish I knew exactly when and where I die because I’d avoid it. And, you know, that’s the essence of impermanence. And that applies to businesses. Amazon has something very similar to a day-one sort of mentality. And so Xanadu will end, but the goal is to kick the can down the road every day, month, year, and decade to see how long we can get.

Katie: Where did the name Xanadu come from? 

Christian: That’s a fun question to answer. We get that a lot. Many people ask: ” Did it come from the Rush song?” And I’m like, “Who’s Rush?” I know who they are now. But being Australian, I didn’t know. And people say, is it from the Kubler Cohn poem? You see, it’s an old poem. It’s not; it’s actually from the song Xanadu, which is from the movie Xanadu, and it stars Olivia Newton-John, who sings this. And the history of that was that I was thinking about calling the company the Beatles, which would be silly. 

And then I thought maybe Lennon or McCartney. That was silly. And then I thought of Electric Light Orchestra Yellow, one of the famous bands, particularly in the 1970s. And that was cool because it had light in the world, which is far too photonics. And then that didn’t feel right. And then Jeff Lin, the lead singer and writer of the band, wrote Xanadu, so it kind of comes full circle. 

The other thing I mentioned people, which a lot of people don’t know, is Olivia Newton-John; she’s passed away now, which is sad because we’re always hoping for her to come to sing one day if we get big enough. Her grandfather was one of the most famous physicists of the last century. And you know, up there in quantum physics and with the best and Max Born is his name. And so there’s a lot of excellent connections there. But it’s also fun. It’s also a great fun song. But there’s a lot of great connections that other people bring to it as well.

Katie: You mentioned the value of impermanence, which I like. Talk to us about Xanadu’s other core values and how you think about those values on a day-to-day basis. 

Christian: As you’re growing your company, the values are fundamental. And, you know, we develop them early in the company’s lifetime. And because it’s essential to culture, you can point back to these and say, “This is what we would like.” If you’re going to be at Xanadu, you need to kind of, you know, exemplify these values. And so there’s eight of them. Impermanence, as you said, is one. The first two always resonate. So when we talk to people through the interview phase or if I’m checking in on someone at work, the first one is, “Are you enjoying what you’re doing?” And it doesn’t mean that every day is fantastic. But for the most part, on average, you’d rather be doing this than any other job. 

And, you know, one of our most significant achievements, honestly, is we have over 200 people, giving 200 people jobs. And, you know, a job is essential in life. It gives you purpose and meaning, and obviously, it helps you pay the bills. But, you know, a lot of us initially were physicists. And so we’ve given so many physicists a job, and they get to keep working on what they do. So, at the heart of what we do is really, “Are we enjoying it?” Knowing that not each day is fantastic, but as said, you’d rather be doing this than anything else. The second one that’s very important is, “Are you learning?” So, learning. Are you learning every day? It can be a little bit. It can be a lot. 

But when you reflect on your week, did you increase your knowledge? Did you learn something? When I was a teenager, you know, there was a period when I was trying to work out what I wanted to do. And I was probably learning, but not a great deal. And it’s a horrible feeling to look back on a week and think, “I didn’t learn much,” you know. When you go through school, and if you go to university, you just take it for granted because you’re forced to learn. You see, you have to pass the exams and so forth. 

So, that’s important. Those two are very important. And thankfully, at a quantum computing company, there are plenty of learning things. It comes naturally as people discover things every day in Xanadu. And that’s a new thing I must learn personally, or at least at a high level. So that comes easily. And then some of the other values: a sense of urgency. It’s always crucial to do things yesterday. You know, effective communication is vital as well. That can be defined in any way. We define that as, you know, checking in on people and sort of, you know, understanding, you know, coming back to the values, essentially. Also, we have an asking and please culture. 

You know, “Can you do this for me? Such and such, please.” That sort of thing. Because I think it gets, you know, you may be telling someone to do it. But if you ask in an asking way, they become much more vertically motivated to do that. I think it’s just a human nature that we probably all would like. So, yeah, there are some values. And initially, you know, it’s probably just me, but I find values from many big companies kind of a bit BS. Yeah. And I look at them and think, “Bold” or stuff like that. And like, what does it mean? And to be fair, someone could look at impermanence and say, “What does it mean?” 

But it’s a little bit different, that word impermanence, so I don’t think it appears on every value sheet that companies have. So I kind of thought it was disingenuous, and as you get bigger, maybe we will fall into the same trap. Honestly, as you have too many, the scale just gets too big, and then you’ve got to act like a large corporation. There’s many things I’ve learned about why corporations do certain things as we’ve gotten older. You know, when you start off, you’re like, “I don’t like how someone is let go, I don’t like how such and such is done.” And then you realize there’s reasons why these things are done in a certain way. We try to push back. But anyways, our values are very important. 

And if people, that’s another way, when we make them an offer, if they can look at that and say, “Well, those things resonate with me,” and they’d love to join this culture and this company.

Katie: Sort of shows showcase the DNA of the company. 

Christian: That’s right, yes.

Katie: It is interesting to hear how you use those core values to shape your hiring processes. I could imagine that building the right team is critical to the success of any company. You’re also in a space where you’re in uncharted territory. I had somebody describe quantum computing, from their perspective, as the closest thing we have to magic. And I thought that was interesting. So, what are some of those qualities and traits? In addition, what are the core values that you look for in the people that you hire?

Christian: Well, in the first 50 to 100 hires, most had some connection to the university, either through a PhD or a master’s degree. So,  in one sense, it’s quite restrictive because the talent pool is constrained. But constraints also lead to very good decision-making as well. Because, you know if a painter is told, “You can only paint within this canvas,” they’re not asked to paint the whole world. And so that helps a lot in making decisions and just getting stuff done. So it was a good thing. And I knew a lot of people already from academia, being from academia, and then you’d hire very good people, and they would recommend other very good people. So in the first 50 to 100, it was about,,, you know, do you have the right qualifications? You know, what papers did you publish? What is your publication record like? What does your supervisor say about you? It was very, very technical.

So that was what it was. I think we got lucky that a lot of these people that we hired had kind of both sides of their brain in the sense that they could do fundamental, hardcore research, but then they could lead people as well and have that emotional intelligence that we talked about before. That’s very rare. It’s not impossible. But we got fortunate, I think, in terms of hiring great people. And many of those people that have both sides of the brain from the early days are still with us and have very important roles.

So, at that point, the first year or two, we didn’t have any values. So, you know, there has to be some sort of luck, whatever that means, hiring. It could go south quite quickly. But, you know, I think also having this field of quantum computing as you said, it’s magic, you know, it is magic. A lot of the time we understand, can kind of quantify certain things, but why nature acts that way, it’s very magical, a lot of fun.

So I think as we went beyond 100, we would do the same sort of things as everyone else. We’d have interview panels, we’d have the values by that stage, making sure people were working hard in any endeavor. That’s very important. So, how do you check for work ethic? Well, that’s a hard one. And at the end of the day, honestly, I would say you never know how someone is going to be until you hire them. You can do everything. I read somewhere that maybe Google had like nine rounds of interviews or something like that, and they still only got 50% right. So, a coin toss. So what they could have done is just flip the coin in front of someone and depending on whether it’s heads or tails, hire them, and they would have gotten the same result.

So, I think the first three months are very important. So, you know, with a probation period, you always need to act quickly. During the three months, you’ve got enough time. It’s still not perfect, but much better than when you made the offer. And I think, like a lot of companies and startups, maybe every company, we’ve taken too long to let people go that haven’t worked out, and it just doesn’t suit. It doesn’t work out for everyone, you know, it’s not working out for the person, therefore, it’s not working out for the company. But, you know, we want to work with nice people, but smart people. And I think sometimes, you know, like everyone else, we’ve waited too long to let people go. So, people have to get better at that. Because the best people want to work with the best people.

So, a lot of stuff I mentioned now, apart from the huge cohort of PhDs, applies to any company that you build. And we try to keep ourselves mindful of, look, at the end of the day, we’re solving a customer problem, we’re still just a company. Now, having said that, it’s really cool as well. But at the end of the day, we can’t lose sight of the fundamentals.

Katie: Then Xanadu has been valued at over $1 billion. That is extremely impressive, and you have raised a lot of money. What’s the total amount of money that you have raised thus far?

Christian: So far, we’ve raised $250 million USD. But that doesn’t include about $55 million CAD from the Canadian government who’s very supportive of us. So far, I guess in USD, it’s like USD 275 million.

Katie: When you have that amount of money, it’s almost hard for founders who are just starting out to fathom that amount of money in terms of investment in a company. Of course, not every company needs that much investment. But how do you know how to spend that money? How do you know what are the right decisions to make? 

Christian: And I think that there’s a great amount of responsibility that you must feel when you take on that sort of investment. You ask yourself, “What are the right decisions that I can make that do right by my team, that do right by my investors?” We always come back to the Xanadu mission: to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere. We have that as a guiding light. That mission can be broken down into different teams, each with their own mini mission statement. We then block out how to achieve that. So, we really start with the mission and work our way backwards.

We feel a lot of responsibility. It doesn’t matter if there’s $20 million, $200 million, or $2 million in the bank account, we have the same respect for the money no matter what. We try to be as thrifty as possible, given the fact that we still need to raise a lot more. What happens after, you know, you mentioned the excitement of raising $2 million, is that you just start thinking about $10 million and $20 million for your next raise. For instance, now we’re thinking about $200 million for our next raise. It could be less, it could be more. But it doesn’t feel like a real number anymore. How do you understand what $250 million is, for instance? It just becomes a number after a while, but you can’t let that lead you to think, “Okay, we might as well spend whatever we want.” So, I think having ingrained thriftiness and frugality is very important in the mindset.

Getting back to your question of how we spend it, we know hardware is key in what we’re doing here, the photonics that I mentioned before. We need to do chip runs. We’re a fabless company, meaning we design our own chips here in Toronto and send them out to different foundries around the world. They make the chips for us with our input, and we get them back. That costs a certain amount of money. So, we then say, “How many chip runs do we need to do per quarter, per year?” That will determine how much money we need to spend.

Throughout this, our budget typically has half the money allocated to salaries. So then, how do we know how to spend that? It comes back to how many people we need to solve the problems we’ve set. It’s a lot of money, and it doesn’t seem real after a while. But I think having that mission and then working out what you want to achieve is crucial. When you raise money, say $100 million, you’ve got it mapped out beforehand. So, when you go to raise it, you say, “Here’s the operational budget, and this is what we’re going to spend it on. This is the reason why.” Step by step has always been the way to sort of figure out these large amounts of money.

Katie: Yeah, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time?

Christian: Exactly. It’s for sure. Yeah, otherwise, it’ll be too overwhelming, and we probably won’t get anything done.

Katie: Let’s talk about some of the marketing and branding angles of Xanadu. I understand that it is seeking to address challenges in cryptography, optimization and machine learning. Talk to us about your target market. So fundamentally, who are you selling to? What is the product? What is it that you are selling? How are you serving them currently?

Christian: Well, the end goal is to serve our customers as best we can with a very large-scale quantum computer. We have quantum computers now, and so do others in the industry, but they aren’t large enough yet. They would take up, you know, a couple of rooms the size of where we are now. The ultimate goal for us, and for others, is to build a quantum data center. Think of it as a bunch of quantum computers filling up half a football field or an acre of land—very much like a traditional data center. We’re not there yet.

Because we’re not there yet, our customers are more focused on proof-of-concept projects, partnerships, and similar initiatives. In fact, in the last few years, we’ve been concentrating on what problems our quantum computing could potentially solve in material design, particularly with automobile companies. For example, we’re exploring how quantum computing might help discover new materials that could lead to next-generation batteries for energy storage. Imagine a single charge that could be charged 10 or 100 times faster, or that could last 10 or 100 times longer, while still being just as safe. Such extraordinary gains require a different type of computer, and that’s what a quantum computer promises.

In our most recent round, Volkswagen invested $10 million. They are great supporters and share their biggest computational problems with us because they understand their business better than we do. We know quantum computing very well, and together we find solutions. Through these partnerships, we file patents, publish papers, and prepare for the future. This stage is crucial preparation for when we have the large-scale data center up and running, at which point we can start solving customer problems on a larger scale.

These characteristics are typical of deep tech companies. It’s similar to the early days of the internet or the PC revolution in the 70s. At that time, no one really knew what these technologies would be used for. For instance, the Apple II was marketed in 1975 or 1976 as a tool for housewives to use in the kitchen for recipes. It wasn’t until later that decade that spreadsheets, word processing, and other business applications emerged. The internet, as we know, has evolved beyond anyone’s predictions to include social media and other innovations, with marketing and branding becoming huge on these platforms.

Quantum computing will likely follow a similar trajectory. We have some ideas and are working with customers, but the truly transformative insights will come after we build our data center.

Katie: That makes sense, even still, while, well, sort of the use cases are to be discovered. Do you think intentionally about the brand of Xanadu? Sort of the intangibles and what it represents and how you show up, you know, in many different platforms, is that something that you’re you’re thinking about and intentional about today. 

Christian: We are. are. We love our Xanadu logo. I think it’s kind of a cool logo. It’s funny, actually. Sometimes, when I walk around the Yonge and College area, I see the Xanadu logo on people, which is really cool for brand recognition. Even people who don’t work at Xanadu buy shirts and hoodies from our online shop with our logo on them. It’s kind of exciting to see our brand out there like that. 

We’re very intentional about our long-term vision for the company, thinking 50 years ahead if we can survive and thrive that long. We want a brand that can last that long as well, and it seems like the name and logo are resonating well. Besides our hardware work with photonics, we also have our software called Penny Lane, named after the Beatles song.

Katie: You got the Beatles reference in there somewhere. 

Christian: My goal is to be sued by the Beatles one day. I think it would be incredible to say, “Hey, we got sued by the Beatles!” Of course, I’d be happy to take it down if it means getting a chance to meet Paul McCartney and say hello. That’s the end goal for me.

On our Penny Lane website, at the bottom, we have a line that says “Made with love,” and it really reflects our approach. Penny Lane is our software for quantum computers, and we truly care about it. When you buy a product, you can usually tell if someone put their heart into it. We want to show that we love what we do and that we don’t cut corners. This commitment to quality and passion is a core part of our brand, and it’s something we think about constantly.

Katie: Penny love is Penny Lane, not Penny love. 

Christian: love it, though. It would love Exactly, right? Yes, exactly.

Katie: Penny Lane is an open source software library for quantum computing and for someone on the outside who doesn’t understand sort of this, this mission, this open source mission. This is information sharing. Is it not? It’s giving access to the world, giving the world access to technology that they can then build upon.

Christian: Open source doesn’t technically mean it’s free, though it is free for us. We don’t charge anyone for it; anyone can download it without cost. You’re also free to modify the software. For instance, someone could take all of our Penny Lane code and create a version called Penny Love—essentially a copy of our code base. This openness is a strategic choice to build a thriving ecosystem around Penny Lane.

Our goal is to grow the number of developers and users who are familiar with Penny Lane so that when our hardware, like the future data center, is ready, they’re already comfortable using it. Penny Lane is designed to be hardware-agnostic; it’s compatible with various hardware, not just our photonic-based approach.

We’re seeing great enthusiasm for Penny Lane. For example, every February, we host a developer conference called Q Hack, which has attracted over 10,000 participants in the past four years, making it one of the most widely used platforms in the world. Additionally, Penny Lane is now part of the curriculum at over 75 universities across 21 countries. There’s a global map showing its reach, and it’s truly amazing to see how widely it’s being adopted.

By sharing this open-source code, we hope people will love it, prototype new ideas and algorithms, and prepare to make full use of our hardware when it becomes available.

Katie: You’ve established partnerships with several global enterprises, including Volkswagen and Nvidia, among others. Partnerships can be a powerful strategy for startups, both in their early stages and as they scale. Based on your experience, what makes a partnership successful? What should founders consider to ensure a partnership is a good fit? Any strategic tips for approaching partnerships?

Christian: Patience is crucial when forming partnerships. It often takes years to establish and make them successful. In our early days, working with banks took a long time. More recently, we’ve focused on material design with car companies, which has been beneficial because these companies were actively seeking partnerships with quantum companies, and we were among the leaders.

For other founders, it’s important to be patient and persistent. Partnerships might take a year or two to solidify. For example, securing $10 million from Volkswagen took considerable time.

Sticking to your values is key for a successful partnership. Simple practices, like saying “please” and “thank you,” and following up with a thank-you email after meetings, can make a big difference. Many people overlook these basics, but they leave a positive impression.

It’s important not to take these simple courtesies for granted. Even if another customer seems more promising, don’t neglect your existing partners. Think long-term and aim to build relationships that will last decades. While our focus is currently on hardware, this mindset will be essential as we develop large-scale quantum computers and continue to grow.

Katie: You have truly achieved a remarkable amount of success, you should be so proud. I mean, you are building a new category, building the world’s first cloud-deployed photonic quantum computer. You’re building this impressive team. You’re forming these partnerships. You’re doing it, you are living actively, living out the stream that you had of being like a Henry Ford or someone who just changes, changes the world for the better. What are you most proud of thus far in your journey?

Christian: As I mentioned before, what I’m most proud of is giving people jobs, especially physicists. It’s rewarding to offer opportunities to those who might otherwise struggle to find relevant positions, particularly in academia where opportunities can be scarce. Many physicists end up moving to smaller towns or even other countries, often leaving their city behind. 

At our company, we’ve been able to offer jobs in Toronto, where most of our 200 employees are based. Previously, many of these physicists might have ended up in banking or consulting roles—common paths for PhD graduates in physics. While there’s nothing wrong with those fields, it’s great to provide an alternative. When I finished my PhD, there were hardly any quantum companies hiring, but now, with our growth and others in the ecosystem, we’re creating a whole new industry. This, I believe, is our greatest achievement.

Katie: I love that. What traits do you think have been key to your success as an entrepreneur? It’s important to remember that behind the headlines and success stories, there were 173 VC meetings before you got a “yes.” The path was filled with challenges and rejections. From a skills and traits perspective, what do you believe has contributed most to your success?

Christian: From my perspective, having an intense belief in what you’re doing and in yourself is crucial. You’ll face more failures than successes, but what matters most is not giving up. It’s about having the conviction that if you have the right team and are in the right industry, you can overcome obstacles.

Another key trait is hard work. You need to be willing to put in the hours—often seven days a week, morning, noon, and night. It can be tough, but if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it won’t feel like a chore. 

For instance, if someone guaranteed I’d become a billionaire by making a new type of shoe, but it took ten years, I wouldn’t be able to do it, even with that certainty. I don’t care much about shoes, and that lack of passion would make it impossible for me to stay motivated.

Finding something you’re truly passionate about is essential. People who say you can’t follow your passion are often those who aren’t satisfied with their own jobs. Listen to those who are living their passion because they’re the ones who can offer genuine advice. But if you show me that you’ve tried various jobs and still haven’t found your path, I’d understand. Just make sure you give it a real effort before concluding that following your passion isn’t possible.

Katie: If Xanadu is successful in your mission, and the mission is to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere, if you are successful in that mission, what will the world look like? 

Christian: That’s a challenging question, and honestly, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. My first thought is about the impact we’ve already made: creating tens of thousands of jobs through our work at Xanadu. That in itself is a future worth striving for.

Beyond that, I’m excited about the potential of quantum computing. We hope to uncover new discoveries and solve significant problems, like developing drugs more quickly and affordably or discovering new materials we never thought possible. The excitement lies in the unknown and the potential breakthroughs.

We’re also proud of what we’re doing in Canada. We’ve focused on building a great deep tech company here, and our efforts have contributed to the Canadian tech landscape. Many of our 200 employees, who come from overseas, have become permanent residents and even citizens, which is a fantastic success story.

Looking ahead, continuing to create jobs, drive innovation, and contribute to Canada’s tech industry would be a fulfilling future.

Katie: I love how passionate you are about your team and giving people jobs, because I’ve actually thought about this more as a founder and starting to build up my own team, I really think, as cheesy as it sounds, it’s one of the best ways to change somebody’s life for the better is to give them a job that they love, where they get to use Their the full extent of their skills and expertise, because we spend so much time at work, especially at Xanadu, we’re spending a lot of time at work. It takes up a big percentage of our lives. Wouldn’t you want to work on something meaningful, something that you can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning for?

Christian: Absolutely, focusing on the positive impacts of hard work and innovation is crucial. Working from a place of passion and vision, rather than just external pressures, helps sustain long-term dedication. 

The criticism of billionaires often overlooks the tremendous good they can do. For instance, Jeff Bezos, through Amazon, has created millions of jobs, which is a significant achievement. Despite criticisms about wealth, the scale of impact and job creation is notable. Similarly, Elon Musk’s ventures have revolutionized multiple industries, showing the potential of entrepreneurship to drive substantial change.

At Xanadu, our goal is to achieve something similar: make a significant impact in Canada and globally. We aim to contribute to advancements in quantum computing while also creating opportunities and jobs.

Katie: I love that, Christian! I want to move into our lightning round. I’ve got five questions to get some actionable takeaways for our audience. Ready?

Christian: Sounds great!

Katie: First up, complete this sentence: Building a notable brand means…

Christian: …showing that you love what you’re doing and you love the product.

Katie: What has been a memorable mic drop moment for Xanadu?

Christian: That’s an easier one! Two years ago, our team demonstrated quantum supremacy. We tackled a math problem so complex that the world’s fastest supercomputer would have taken 7 million years to solve it. Our quantum computer, Borealis, solved it in just two minutes. It was a monumental achievement—probably one of the biggest mic drops ever.

Katie: That’s a big mic drop!

Christian: Absolutely. We were the first startup to achieve this, and it was the first time it happened in Canada. The team did an incredible job.

Katie: Is quantum supremacy the same as quantum advantage?

Christian: It’s a bit debatable. Some people use “quantum computational advantage” or “quantum advantage” interchangeably. But generally, they all refer to the same concept. Quantum advantage specifically refers to solving a problem that was previously intractable for classical computers, and we’re working towards that for business applications.

Katie: That needs to be on a t-shirt: “What takes you 7 million years, we can do in two minutes.”

Christian: Exactly!

Katie: What’s one brand that you admire and why?

Christian: I admire SpaceX. I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk and what he’s accomplished. Watching their rocket launches shows the dedication and care they put into their work and their mission. Their products and the SpaceX shop also reflect a genuine passion for what they do, which makes the brand stand out.

Katie: What are a handful of resources you’d recommend for someone looking to build their personal or corporate brand?

Christian: I would answer that as Read, read, read and read non-fiction and biographies, and then you’ve got all your answers you ever need in that

Katie: What’s up and coming for you, and where can people connect with you and follow Xanadu?

Christian: They can follow Xanadu on Twitter @XanaduAI and LinkedIn. As for me, I’ve been traveling a lot recently and am gearing up for more. We’re looking to raise more funds by the end of this year, and we have some big milestones and announcements coming up. So, a lot of travel to sovereign wealth funds and pension funds in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Canada is on my agenda.

Katie: Christian, this was an incredibly insightful conversation. Thank you so much for being here.

Christian: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Katie: Thank you for tuning in to Get Mic’d. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. I look forward to bringing you more engaging conversations with thought leaders, sharing their insights on building a notable brand. We’ll see you next time!