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Canada's already lost at innovation. Almost everyone I know who graduated with a STEM degree moved to the US immediately upon graduation. My favorite example:
by aianus 11y ago
Canada's already lost at innovation. Almost everyone I know who graduated with a STEM degree moved to the US immediately upon graduation.
My favorite example: Apoorva Mehta invented Instacart in Waterloo, Canada because it was too cold to go grocery shopping and too expensive to own a car. Then he immediately went to San Francisco (a city with warm weather and cheap cars?!) to start his unicorn.
Waterloo students still go shopping in the snow. #fail.
- jbob2000 11y agoI 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.
- tjl 11y agoWaterloo 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).
- ska 11y agoI 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.
- aianus 11y agoI 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.
- jbob2000 11y agoYour 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!
- serge2k 11y ago> 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.
- t4nkd 11y agoJust, anecdotally, I knew a startup in northwest Arkansas (the walmart region) that won seed funding of about $100,000. They squandered the money relatively quickly, and immediately decided the only way to salvage their business was to head to SF. It only took a few months after renting a house to keep everyone in, and they managed to secure another ≈$1.3M. To this day they swear up and down, the only way to turn a business idea into reality is to live in SF/the valley. Seems to be a very common concept, regardless of the realities.
- GFischer 11y agoGetting funded outside the Valley is an order of magnitude harder, so it makes sense to move to the Valley I guess (even temporarily). A local company raised 25.000 dollars here in Uruguay, got accepted into 500 Startups and got over a million dollars in funding (which is basically impossible here), they have a very cool idea and innovative tech but had little traction at the time.
- jp555 11y agoSV can disrupt anything ... except geography.
- t4nkd 11y agoAt that rate, the entire software industry is just a facet of an elaborate real estate gamble.
- tjl 11y agoThat's funny because Grocery Gateway was founded in the 90s and delivers groceries in Waterloo. It's not the same day, but you can often get it the next day. I use it because I don't drive and it's simple to get one big delivery at the start of the month and have most of my groceries aside from a few perishables like fruits and vegetables.
- kspaans 11y agoAs an aside, I recently moved to London UK from Waterloo. In the UK every major grocery store chain does delivery for a nominal fee (£1 in my case).