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Comment by mhurron | Hacker News Reader

> I'm seriously considering going back to SV.

You do know that tech centers in the US are outliers and general policy in the US is basically the same as Canada, and other countries that have a large mass of natural resources, Australia for example.

Mass exploitation of every resource in reach will make us rich. Or, to put it another way 'Drill baby drill.'

Silicon Valley and those that think it's different live in a little bubble that doesn't reflect the way the rest of the country thinks or acts. So moving to Silicon Valley because you don't like the short sighted drain every resource because it's cheap right now line of thinking won't be an act to change any of that, it will just let you ignore that it's happening.

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100% agreed. But that insulated bubble is tremendously helpful for growing from a little shitstorm of a startup into something potentially world-changing.

Your odds are vanishingly low when it comes to succeeding in a startup. As a founder, you should do everything you can to stack the odds in your favour.

Edit: I can't respond to your reply, so I'll do it here. It's not just about funding. It's about finding like-minded individuals that are similarly motivated. It's about finding talent. It's about culture.

I love Toronto, and I love Canada. I want to be here. But it's better in SV for tech startups.

Then stop pretending that going to Silicon Valley is part of any social views and just go with the fact that it's easier to get money thrown at you in Silicon Valley and your just feeding another problem.

To your edit: > It's not just about funding. It's about finding like-minded individuals

That's one problem you're part of fueling. There is no reason you can't have people work remotely. You shouldn't have to go to a physical place to find like minded people. However, thanks to people looking at funding can only happen in SV, and then start-ups being somehow having such a backwards view that if you're not in the seat I can see it's to hard to work as a team, and the believe that the only place to find decent, 'like-minded' people are in SV, everyone has to go to SV to get a job.

So a little bubble ends up sucking up a whole bunch of money and being a contributor to growing social problems in both SV and where ever everyone comes from.

I love that people who don't work in tech can still afford to live in Toronto. I don't think we're doing as well as we could to combat income inequality, but I'm glad we aren't throwing billions of dollars at overinflated startups. Hell, the biggest recent Canadian startup success story is Shopify, which actually sells real products and has revenue. Not just "slap some ads on it and we'll turn a profit".

I love that people who don't work in tech can still afford to live in Toronto.

Isn't the average cost of a home nearing $1M in the GTA core? From what i've read, Toronto isn't that far behind SV when it comes to real estate price inflation.

Rents don't fully reflect current property values. Landlords that didn't buy before the current mania are banking on property value growth to get their return on investment.

> But that insulated bubble is tremendously helpful for growing from a little shitstorm of a startup into something potentially world-changing.

I think that if your main goal in your startup is to raise capital from tech investors then you are correct that SV is where you need to be.

But in terms of actually building a business in the early days where head-down heavy lifting is required, I don't really see what SV offers that Toronto or Montreal do not. There are countless brilliant people in the Canadian tech community if what you are looking for is discussion or mentorship.

>But in terms of actually building a business in the early days where head-down heavy lifting is required, I don't really see what SV offers that Toronto or Montreal do not.

A much larger labor pool. In Silicon Valley, provided you're willing to pay, you can find experts for pretty much anything computer-related. You can find people looking to work at startups, willing to put in the hours, and willing (somewhat) to defer compensation. I'm sure there are a lot of smart people in Toronto and Montreal, but tech people flock to northern California from all over the world.

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