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YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#671

Post by _jal »

vecinu wrote: post #623
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a move of any importance into Canada (doubtful to me as a Canadian) it will not be to Vancouver with its outrageous real estate prices, and very few tech companies, but to the Greater Toronto/Hamilton area, which is where 90% of these types of businesses are. Amazon, Google, and IBM are all already here or around here [Google is in Kitchener/Waterloo]. Apple is here for sales/marketing only (at least when…

I generally agree with most of what you said and yeah, the weather and salaries are generally what attracts people to the bay area. You also get the bonus of being around the brightest folks from around the world and that provides great mentorship opportunities. As the other child comment on your post said, I think it would be wise to consider how important Vancouver's more mild weather and being in the same timezone…

> You also get the bonus of being around the brightest folks from around the world and that provides great mentorship opportunities

This is actually the biggest advantage for me. I moved to the Bay Area after school because I am a technical person, but stayed because of the culture (capital and lowercase) and the large numbers of very smart people. Have lived in NYC and Bremen, but the Bay is home. While the money and weather are great, it really is ready availability of top-tier folks. (In a coffee shop on Mission St., I literally tripped over a person I later came to realize is probably the single most accomplished programmer in a particular domain, not to mention a great person to talk art with.)

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#672

Post by muninn_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #658
muninn_ wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way Trump has been acting? We'll see.

No. We won't. It's a constitutional impossibility for the American government to 'fall' outside of a revolution. The only thing that will happen is that two years from now there will be elections but not for president. I consider the fact that the government can't fall to be a bug in the US political system but it's not even the biggest one. For all the reverence the 'founding fathers' get they could have done a much…

It's not impossible to impeach somebody.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#673

Post by kylestlb »

illumin8 wrote: post #544
komali2 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then he would have to charge 10$/apple at the store, his follow-up point.

And, I'm not saying this is wrong, but it appears to me that most people living here have voted with their wallet. If you compare food prices in nordic countries where labor is more fairly priced, you'll see how dramatically more expensive everything is.

I'd love to see a formal study on how often Americans "go out" for food rather than buy from a grocery and cook it themselves. In Scandinavia, the cost difference between eating-in and going-out is much, much larger than here in the USA.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#674

Post by HillaryBriss »

curiousfiddler wrote: post #447

If you don't provide opportunity and a good civil environment to brilliant/enterprising people, they will find a way elsewhere. And once Vancouver or any other city starts working for them, Silicon Valley will lose its exclusivity. The thing to note here is that this response from YC is not a political one, but a response that came out of market demand; it is pretty significant if it works out.

> And once Vancouver or any other city starts working for them, Silicon Valley will lose its exclusivity.

Silicon Valley doesn't have exclusivity. It has startup funding. It's all about the money, not weather, not talent, not Berkeley, not Stanford, not visa availability. It's about money.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#675

Post by rdl »

Eridrus wrote: post #175
uiri wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, I'm doubtful that this is the case. There is a reason why almost all Canadian startups seek funding South of the border. In Canada, it is easier to get government grants than it is to secure venture capital.

I feel like YC, with it's long record would have an easier time attracting capital than an individual startup.

Canadian YC alums alone would be more than sufficient to provide the capital for this, if necessary.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#676

Post by throwaway2048 »

crazy1van wrote: post #49
matthewmacleod wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen that do not currently hold dual nationality with another country, an existing visa, or another document permitting entry. No hysteria there.

Are there any stats on how many prior YC founders were from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen?

Steve jobs was syrian

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#677

Post by zeure »

acchow wrote: post #531
curiousfiddler wrote: post #447

If you don't provide opportunity and a good civil environment to brilliant/enterprising people, they will find a way elsewhere. And once Vancouver or any other city starts working for them, Silicon Valley will lose its exclusivity. The thing to note here is that this response from YC is not a political one, but a response that came out of market demand; it is pretty significant if it works out.

How will Vancouver improve its weather? California has a powerful draw...

California's terrible (IMO alert) weather is the main reason I've never considered moving out there for a job.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#678

Post by mc32 »

mck- wrote: post #569
acchow wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will Vancouver improve its weather? California has a powerful draw...

Weather here is amazing! Vancouver has such a bad rep when it comes to rain, but honestly it's not that bad. Here's what it's really like: Between May and October, basically half of the year, you'll have very comfortable T-shirt weather, and blue skies I'd say 70% of the time! Between December and March it's gloomy, but you'll have awesome snow in the mountains, just 30 min from downtown :) from our office we can see…

If people are used to Seattle or Portland OR weather, they'll be used to Vancouver weather. I must say though, getting used to the Winter gloom takes some getting used to.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#679

Post by trentmb »

curiousfiddler wrote: post #447

If you don't provide opportunity and a good civil environment to brilliant/enterprising people, they will find a way elsewhere. And once Vancouver or any other city starts working for them, Silicon Valley will lose its exclusivity. The thing to note here is that this response from YC is not a political one, but a response that came out of market demand; it is pretty significant if it works out.

> And once Vancouver or any other city starts working for them, Silicon Valley will lose its exclusivity.

I fail to see the problem.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#680

Post by JamilD »

muninn_ wrote: post #615
JamilD wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. But it'll do some damage, which will only get worse as time goes on. What about 8 years? 12? If you restrict skilled legal immigration long-term, you're necessarily going to (slowly) drive companies away.

This implies that we don't have enough home-grown talent. We do.

It's not a zero-sum game of open jobs to potential employees.

If you're able to interact with the smartest people in the world - and not just your own country - you end up forming more effective and larger companies. Which in turn create jobs.

If you shut out your country to the rest of the world, the next Google will be founded somewhere else.

And I'll dispute your claim that the US has enough talent. There was a submission on HN recently about the top deep learning papers. Go through it. Count the number of American-born people. Geoff Hinton? Yann LeCun? Russ Salakhutdinov? Demis Hassibis (of Deep Mind)? Virtually everyone on there was born somewhere else. They're not Americans, but they're mostly working for American companies and contributing their talent to YOUR economy.

[0] https://github.com/terryum/awesome-deep-learning-papers/blob...

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