I'm curious how you define top-tier in this situation, especially tech-centric. I agree the U.S. has more "top" institutions from a reputation standpoint (parti

I'm curious how you define top-tier in this situation, especially tech-centric. I agree the U.S. has more "top" institutions from a reputation standpoint (partially due to us living in a US-centric western world), but they are also astronomically more expensive to attend than their Canadian counterparts. The University of Waterloo is probably not a "top-tier" school by any formal metric, but I would be surprised if it doesn't rival or beat the very top schools in the U.S. in terms of top engineers & tech entrepreneurs produced on a per-capita basis. Waterloo, for example, has a co-op program that (at least when I attended it years ago) had me graduating debt-free, with built-up savings, and 2 years of tech. experience (including in SV). Many of my peers went to work for MS, Google, or Amazon (the big players at the time) right after graduation. Basically, if you wanted to go south of the border, you could, but of course many want to stay in Canada. I think similar opportunities are there for students from Toronto and other institutions. Accounting for population difference, I don't think the gap is that massive. Also, Sam Altman is a big fan :) While researching his piece Bruni spoke with Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator, one of the best-known providers of seed money for tech startups. Bruni asked him if any one school stood out in terms of students and graduates whose ideas took off. “Yes,” Altman responded. Bruni was prepared to hear Altman tout his alma mater Stanford. After all it’s famous as a feeder of Silicon Valley success. But Altman surprised him: “The University of Waterloo.”