How Building a Private Arsenal Could Change Your Media Game Forever

What we talked about.

In this episode, Sunny Ray sits down with Andrew McLuhan, grandson of Marshall McLuhan and founder of the McLuhan Institute. Andrew traces his path from childhood in Toronto, where he only slowly realized his grandfather's fame, through years working as his father Eric McLuhan's assistant, to inventorying Marshall's 5,000 book annotated library in 2009. That project led him to uncover the first documented moment Marshall said the medium is the message, at a 1958 UBC broadcasters conference, sparking a quest he is now turning into a book. The conversation moves through courage, inherited legacy, poetry versus building things by hand, and rural life near Bloomfield, Ontario, where he raises his kids and builds treehouses. Andrew also unpacks what medium is the message actually means for founders today, arguing that technology's form, not its content, is what truly reshapes culture, psychology, and identity. He closes on his hopes for the Institute's next phase: opening its archives to the public and building a sustainable succession beyond himself.

Marshall McLuhan's grandson on inherited genius, lost archives, and why the medium still shapes us more than the message.

The questions, and the answers.

What does the word courage mean to you?

Courage was among my father's last words. He gave a speech the night before he died in Bogota, opening a PhD program in communication, and he added the word courage in his own handwriting. I think he wanted them to have courage to find their own way rather than inherit someone else's tradition. I feel that applies to anyone starting something new. It is much easier said than done. Courage is not for the faint of heart.

Growing up as a McLuhan, did you understand who your grandfather was, or was he just grandpa?

I was two when he died, so it was a few years later before I realized people knew who my granddad was and that this was unusual. Growing up under that felt weird, sometimes like a shadow, sometimes like illumination. My dad was a bit of a weird guy too. It is not normal to have that kind of outsized curiosity in a family. I highly recommend cultivating the weirdness, though it is not for the faint of heart.

You were a poet, photographer, and craftsman before all this. What pulled you toward making things with your hands rather than ideas on pages?

I have always liked building stuff, it is satisfying. I am building a treehouse right now for my kids, in the same spot I built one 20 years ago when I did not know much about structure. This time I rebuilt it properly so I would actually trust my kids up there. Writing a poem is almost the least poetic act, the real art is in perception and metaphor, seeing connections, which is the one thing AI still cannot really do.

In 2009 you were asked to inventory Marshall's personal annotated library. Can you walk me through that first day?

I would open a book and see his name at the top, HM McLuhan, and then find things underlined, notes in the margins, sometimes a note from my dad too. In one book I found a circled page saying artists are the antenna of the race, a major theme of his. There were about 5,000 books, not all annotated, and it quickly grew from a simple inventory into an entry into somebody's intellectual life.

Was there a single page where it clicked that this work was bigger than just your family?

I found a reprint of chapter one of Understanding Media with a pencil note from my grandfather saying where he first said the medium is the message, at a radio broadcasters conference at the University of British Columbia in 1958. I had never considered that the famous phrase had a specific first time and place. That discovery set me on a quest to trace every time he said it differently, which I am still on.

Can you explain what medium is the message actually means, using something like YouTube as an example?

It is not that content does not matter, but the effect of YouTube on us in the world does not come from any individual video, it comes from the fact that YouTube exists and disrupts television and networks. The personal and social consequences come from the form. My grandfather paraphrased TS Eliot, saying content is like the juicy piece of meat used by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.

What is it that founders typically cannot see about the technology they are building?

They tend to focus on exit, product market fit, and profitability, which are important but very surface level. The economic effect is only one part of any technology's impact. There are also psychological, cultural, educational, and identity effects that are often much bigger. I try to help founders think outside that narrow economic lens toward the wider nature of the thing they are actually building.