Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie • Hacker News Board

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#21

Post by stinkytaco » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

>We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, but the potential payoff could save us. If you're not growing, you're dying.

I'm curious what these growth sectors are? Are you referring to software companies? Because though I agree that's a growth sector, it's hard for me to envision how many jobs that creates in the long run. Wouldn't it create the same problems as manufacturing, i.e. it's cheaper to outsource or automate so its job pool will shrink over time? Resources and manufacturing are real, tangible things that have real tangible value. Services, though the natural growth of an economy it seems, are fleeting and easy to do without when things go wrong.

I agree that we can't lean and need to encourage a diverse economy, but I would also argue that investment in any area is a gamble, and gambling is hard for a government to do when under constant public scrutiny.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#22

Post by mhurron » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

HorizonXP wrote: post #20

mhurron wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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-mi…

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.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#23

Post by cmrdporcupine » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

prolepunk wrote: post #13

Boo-hoo. Same newspaper that endorsed Conservatives, whose economic policies for the past decade was to put oil sands above everything else, the government under which we saw Canada withdrawing from Kyoto and generally have terrible environmental record, is now having seconds thoughts when oil tanked as well as other commodities tanked dragging loonie with it. Boo-hoo, sir, boo-hoo. Refs: their endorsement -- http://…

The Canadian bourgeoisie (yes I'm using that word) has a deep split in orientation -- resource extraction Calgary school vs a more established Bay st money, "Laurentian elite." With the collapse of oil price, the strength of the former has waned in favour of the latter, hence the Liberal party has hegemony instead of the Reform.

The Globe has for the last 15 years at least been schizophrenic about which of these two camps it supports. Its editorial board is a little different from the rest of the content in the paper.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#24

Post by jordigh » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

Not to play second fiddle to Toronto and Vancouver, but here in Mtl we have a fairly lively startup scene and some bigger players like Ubisoft, Google, and Bombardier as well. I frequent our Montréal Python usergroup, and I'm routinely impressed by the calibre of the presentations and the work that people are showing off.[1]

If you want talent, it's certainly available, and it's cheaper than SV.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/MontrealPython/videos

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#25

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

[deleted]

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#26

Post by HorizonXP » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

seivan wrote: post #15

HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

I thought banks, resource companies and actual manufacturing were usually profitable. While most tech lived on VC money, at least when you look at the Bay Area. What am I missing here? Every time I read about this stuff I always get the impression that tech is this abstract thing that barely makes profit and lives on investments while "traditional" businesses lives on selling actual things that creates profit. Which…

All of those profitable companies were once unprofitable. They got their start from some sort of initial investment, whether it was investors, family, or just taking an existing profitable business and morphing it.

Most startups in the tech sector are exactly as you describe. And that's the point. Eventually, one of those startups finds something that can turn a profit. They build something that people want and are able to push on a few levers and ramp up profitability.

Apple, Google, Facebook, and many more, started out as small startups that barely made profit and lived on investments. Eventually, they got their shit together and became some of the world's largest companies. However, most startups that existed at the same time as them, heck, may have even had similar ideas as them, crashed and burned. That's the nature of venture capital. Throw a bunch of money at a bunch of ideas and see what sticks.

And if you think that's a very haphazard way of investing, you're right, it is. But as a percentage of total investments made by many funds, VC funding is a very minor portion, so they can somewhat afford to make these bets (and lose).

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#27

Post by HorizonXP » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:16 PM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #24

HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

Not to play second fiddle to Toronto and Vancouver, but here in Mtl we have a fairly lively startup scene and some bigger players like Ubisoft, Google, and Bombardier as well. I frequent our Montréal Python usergroup, and I'm routinely impressed by the calibre of the presentations and the work that people are showing off.[1] If you want talent, it's certainly available, and it's cheaper than SV. [1] https://www.youtu…

Thanks for reminding me of this.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#28

Post by patrick_99 » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #16

Canada didn't forget anything. We have a diverse economy with common sense measures like reducing our net debt to GDP, while keeping a fully funded retirement pension fund (CPP, unlike SS, actually invests in the public market). Even the way we do provincial transfer payments is sane. While one industry is booming (Oil, manufacturing, tech) other "have not" provinces get payments through the federal government. This…

I'd argue Canada made concerted efforts to support natural resource industries at the cost of all other industries. Eg. expending massive political capital with the US to push for Keystone XL. We've hurt our image abroad by fighting climate change action, Canada even refused to consider asbestos a hazardous material because there's a single asbestos mine in the country. As soon as that mine closed we switched to considering it hazardous. These are short termed, unprincipled policy decisions that help the resource industry at the expense of the Canadian brand.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#29

Post by cmrdporcupine » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

cal5k wrote: post #11

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked in Toronto's tech scene for almost two decades I just have a big 'meh' response to it. I now work at Google in Kitchener, and commute from a hobby farm near Hamilton. Quality of life is outstanding. I dread ever having to work in Toronto proper again. The startup scene in Toronto is a clique. The quality of management talent is sad. After working as employee #4 in a Toronto startup, I jumped ship to wor…

As a Toronto-based startup founder, I'm sorry you had that experience! (Shit, how Canadian of me... Apologizing for other people) In any event, I think for the first time there's a really good cohort of Toronto founders with American-style vision and ability to execute. I don't think we're too far from seeing a couple of unicorns in Toronto that will help to build a stronger ecosystem. And yes, where necessary that m…

With the CAD being low there might be a window where a lot more American capital invests here. Until the price of oil climbs again.

In general it seems like VC-funded companies that go through acquisition here get a far weaker deal than similar companies in the US. And the employees a lesser share of the pie. Maybe that's changing now, but unless the capital is there to invest, I can't see how.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#30

Post by guiomie » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 3:20 PM UTC

The scary part in my opinion is: "Housing is the only thing keeping the Canadian economy afloat."

This more an anecdote than an argument, but I know quite a few people who can barely pay their mortgage or have crazy margin debt (with mortgage) in Canada. I doubt their situation will get any better soon. There is this mentality around here that owning a house is a must or you are some kind of loser.