T1 is now T30! (Years Old)

If you told me in 1994 that today, my self-driving car would safely take me home to my house in thirty minutes of Toronto traffic away from my squash club, I would have laughed at you.

If you told me in 1994 that a start-up named Cadabra would become a $1.8 trillion business, I would have asked who would name their company after a dead body.

If you had told me in 1994 that the new trade agreement, NAFTA, the best Canada had ever reached, would one day be threatened by the former owner of the New Jersey Generals, I would have been lost in the details.

If you had told me in 1994 that this was the year the Allied occupation of Berlin would end, I would have been shocked to learn that Germany was still under international rule.

If you had told me that the Major League Baseball player’s strike, beginning the most prolonged work stoppage in the sport’s history, would be the beginning of the end for the Montreal Expos. I would have cared more.

If you had told me that Colombian footballer Andrés Escobar, 27, would be shot dead in Medellín as retaliation for the goal Escobar scored in the 1994 FIFA World Cup against the United States soccer team, I would question my love of sport.

If you had told me that The 66th Academy Awards, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, would see Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust drama Schindler’s List win seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director(Spielberg), I would have high-fived you.

If you had told me that Michael Jackson would marry Lisa Marie Presley in the Dominican Republic, I would have wished to have heard that MJ and Elvis would do a live duet just once.

If you had told me three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna would die in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy, I would have reminded myself that life is fragile.

If you had told me that on May 6, the Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers more than seven years to complete, would officially open between England and France, I might have asked who had this genius idea.

If you had told me that the brutal murders of June 12 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman would birth the creation of 24-hour news channels, I would have said that OJ’s death in 2024 didn’t bring closure to that tragedy.

If you told me in 1994 that China would get its first, its first, connection to the internet, I would have asked, can I Google that?

If you had told me that Pulp Fiction, a movie by Quentin Tarantino, premieres would become the highest-grossing independent film ever, I would have said no kidding.

If you told me that Byron De La Beckwith would finally be convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, I would have asked what took so long.

If you told me in 1994 that a Black man named Nelson Mandela would be the first President in South Africa elected in a fully democratic process, I would have cried.

If you had told me in 1994 that thirty years was a long time, I would have said it felt like yesterday.

If I had told you in 1994, when I founded T1, that in thirty years, we would have survived the dot com crash, the 2008 recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more, I would have said “Thank you” to all who helped us do so.

So please let me tell you. THANK YOU to everyone who has been a part of our journey- internally, externally, peripherally, close up and afar.

By the way, the company once known as Cadabra is now called Amazon, and in 1994, I wish someone had told me to buy stock!