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Comment by canistr | Hacker News Reader

I listened to the podcast yesterday and while the premise is correct, the episode is actually lousy at explaining any of it, discussing anything that happened at the meetings with "leaders", and ultimately had the wrong people discussing the topic. This ended sounding like a platform for Dan Debow to talk about whatever agenda he wanted with little REAL pushback from the host.

The only reassuring thing about this podcast was the brief mention that Ted Livingston (of Kik) was at those talks with so-called "leaders of Canada". I mean, do we really expect the likes of Galen Weston, Magna International, and the like to really talk about innovation or tech? Other than Kik, which of those companies would any person on HN really be interested in working at?

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This is sadly how policy decisions get made in government. The smart people building stuff are usually busy building stuff and are turned off of events with titles like "leaders of Canada". At the same time, a lot of the successful Canadian founders, who would have time for this, found success via acquisition by US companies and aren't around to attend.

I'm curious if there are articles about Canada hemorrhaging math/finance talent to New York? Or is this just something we perpetually complain about in tech as if talent/industry centralization wasn't a phenomenon in almost every big new market in history.

All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so. That's how we can tell if their good or not, usually. And nothings wrong with that. No one complained when Drake signed to a US label when his new career took off...

Maybe it's just a continuation of the fine tradition in software management to blame everybody but yourself for the company's problems.

The USA has many natural advantages against Canada when it comes to 'exceptionalism' - mostly scale and clusters.

It's almost impossible to do anything A++ in Canada because it gets sucked into the US.

So Canada is a great place for the 99%, but for anything that's exceptional, it's the US.

The way market economies work 'exceptional' companies suck up most of the profits and surpluses ...

So it's a perennial problem for the talented.

But again, for most people, Canada is a better place if you can hack the weather.

>All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so.

Not the Tragically Hip. But they always seemed happy with that.

You know, I think it's a myth that they aren't popular there. They're no Rolling Stones, but they still fill concert halls and festivals!

But they never sold their souls to the States and they seem very proud of it.

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