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Comment by jbob2000 | Hacker News Reader

jbob2000

I don't know how you can dismiss an entire country because of one person's move. Toronto and Montreal both have big tech scenes and plenty of investors (albeit a bit on the bearish side). As much as we lose talent to the states, we also pull a lot up as well.

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Waterloo itself has a pretty big tech scene. There's a number of incubators and a few big companies have opened local offices (e.g., Google and Shopify).

Ottawa has a large tech scene too.

As does Vancouver.

   I don't know how you can dismiss an entire country because of one person's move.

You can't, at least not without appearing foolish.

You can certainly discuss trends in education and work crossing that border, but they aren't simple or one sided.

I lived there for 19 years and saw first-hand the total lack of capital, vision, appetite for risk, and ability to hire and retain top talent.

Unless, of course, your business revolved around digging things up from the ground and selling them to the US. Thankfully (hopefully?) that era is coming to an end too.

Your experiences are in stark contrast to mine. Keep in mind that we're a country of 35 mil. people and that we compete with countries ten and twenty times our size. Sure we're risk-averse, but I'd prefer that over crapping out off-the-shelf delivery apps every 6 months like SF.

Honestly, from being in the industry in Toronto for 5 years now, the "top talent" that leaves is anything but. Just title-chasers waving expensive degrees. My director just left for SF to build "spotify, but for food. It'll totally be great man." Yeah, great talent there!

> Keep in mind that we're a country of 35 mil. people and that we compete with countries ten and twenty times our size. Sure we're risk-averse, but I'd prefer that over crapping out off-the-shelf delivery apps every 6 months like SF.

I don't really see size of the country as en excuse in this case. We have the same or better ability to pull talent from overseas, and free trade visas with the US work both ways. SF produces a ton of shit, but they also end up with actually impressive tech companies. Canada has really no answer to that.

> Honestly, from being in the industry in Toronto for 5 years now, the "top talent" that leaves is anything but. Just title-chasers waving expensive degrees.

um okay. Apparently going to work on interesting stuff for a big tech company for 50% more money (more now, the dollar is tanking again) makes me a title chaser.

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