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Post 2016 the messaging from most commonwealth countries (UK, Canada, Australia) seemed to be that they were going to be the ones bennefiting from a brain drain
by 908B64B197 4y ago
Post 2016 the messaging from most commonwealth countries (UK, Canada, Australia) seemed to be that they were going to be the ones bennefiting from a brain drain of americans leaving the country. Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the United States to foreing talent. I recall someone pitching the "Silicon Roundabout" and that Cambridge and Oxford were going to be the new Stanford and MIT.
It's interesting, in retrospective, to see how wrong these predictions were. Here in the Valley, I actually noticed an increase in number of international hires coming from commonwealth countries in the last few years.
- astrange 4y agoI've mainly seen Canada be used to park people there who can't immigrate to the US because the system for that is too backed up. Being in the same timezone as SV is pretty helpful for collaboration.
- asdadsdad 4y agoI think that can be true, but from knowing many people that did take that route, I don't think that's a stable kind of immigration though. i.e. people who do that would rather be in the US but couldn't and are often just waiting around for the right opportunity to go back. Some stay forever, sure, but I think the two countries offer entirely different lives, specially for career-driven people.
- 2143 4y ago> two countries offer entirely different lives Curious about this. Could you please elaborate? Like, the differences in lives of a software developer in, say Toronto and San Francisco (other than salary)? Just curious.
- asdadsdad 4y agoThere was an interesting reading a while ago, trying to find. It basically boiled down to "The Canadian dream is move to America". Canada is a middle-class, "middle-all", in fact, country with, in my opinion little excitement. But then again, that's just my personal opinion. Factually, yeah, the US offers more purchase power, better salaries and better mobility.
- 908B64B197 4y agoFrom a quick search would it be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31378415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31378415 ?
- asdadsdad 4y agoyeah, exactly.
- asdadsdad 4y agoMy point is: if you have to leave the US due to immigration, frankly I'd rather go to Britain than Canada. At least I get an exciting change in lifestyle. Canada is too close to America in what it tries to do but fails. UK is f* up, but at least it's Europe