Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

741–750 of 851 posts

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

#741

Post by mantas »

acchow wrote: post #653
cperciva wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ski in the morning and play beach volleyball in the afternoon? What month of the year? Whistler-blackcomb tops out at only 8000ft. March or April. We've had an exceptionally harsh winter this year (snow on the ground in Vancouver for weeks on end -- happens about once a decade) but usually around now people are admiring the cherry blossoms on their way to the beach. Whistler/Blackcomb has a perfectly skiable alpine t…

Ok, but even in May average high in Vancouver is 16.7C, average low of 8.8C. That's hardly beach volleyball weather. I'm skeptical of the claim that people ski in the morning and play beach volleyball in the afternoon...maybe one or two lucky days a year? These are exactly the temperatures tons of people in this thread are saying is cold when referring to San Francisco. They actually correspond with March in SF.

16c is almost tshirt weather in northern europe, which is about same latitude as Vancouver. This would pass as a colder summer day too. No rain = beach :)

Everybody's perspective is different...

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

#742

Post by timthelion »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #257
EternalData wrote: post #237

It's oddly ominous reading about America's rise on the back of textile patents taken from England and Europe, then poaching of German physics talent and scientific talent from across the world. Germany was, by far, the pre-eminent power in theoretical physics at the turn of the 20th century, with Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck & Born about to be at the peak of their powers. Then the country decided to turn on intellect…

Germany waged two world wars over 20 years and tens of millions of people died because of that. Germany, even at its scientific height was racist and nationalist. Hitler didn't come to power in the 30s without generations of Germans being the foundation. The US is very far from that. I don't understand the massive overreaction. The United States in the 60s was a place where there were sundown towns that blacks dared…

But the US has a history of racism, slavery (even today, in the prisons), genocide angainst the natives, Christian supremasism leading the military to torture people without cause [1], mass internment of native Americans, Japanees, and Irish. In US history, Americans have already killed more inocent civilian Native Americans and blacks than the germans killed Jews, Polls and Gypsies. Unlike the Germans, Americans still deny their own hollocaust of the Natives. Claiming that it was smallpox, which echos the hollocaust deniers claims of typhus quite clearly. And in the past 30-40 years, Americans have been quiet about this. This has become taboo. But many people, even in the US government, such as Jeff Sessions, and Donald Trump are rooted to the history of racism and genocide. They are alive today, and they are ruling the country.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...

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

#743

Post by K0SM0S »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #675
refurb wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the same Canada whose police would pick up drunk First Nations men, drive them out of town and let them freeze to death?[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths

I'm sure Canada has had several such incidents (some that happened more recently than 17 years ago), but I'd wager that you're still safer here from the police (across the board, but especially for minorities), than you are in the U.S.

Frankly, seen from Europe, most things 'police', 'safety', 'justice' are nothing short of wtf-grade in the US. It's surreal, it's one of the closest thing there is to dystopia (of the wrong kind) in the west. Arguably SF/Bay is a bit of an island (even politically) but still deeply embedded in the rather 'extreme' US culture.

By comparison Canada, much like Sweden or Switzerland here, feels like a pretty 'normal' country overall, much more reasonable in many regards. And it's safer there's no question about it.

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

#744

Post by timthelion »

neptunespear wrote: post #285
dmode wrote: post #132

As someone who is tired of the decades long wait and uncertainty in the US immigration system, it would be amazing if tech companies were to open a Vancouver outpost and offer transfers to people in visas. I would take that in a heartbeat. May be YC can consider another incubator in Vancouver

Vancouver has been a popular place to transfer foreign talent to the U.S. for years. It's a short drive to Seattle, a short flight to San Francisco, and in the same time zone as both cities. Famously, Facebook had an office in Coal Harbour that was just for transferring hires to Menlo Park, they didn't hire any Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Even more famously, Microsoft's recent expansion in Vancouver, th…

How is the border between the US and Canada these days? When I went skiing at Wistler, it took us longer to wait to cross the border than it took us to drive from Seattle to the border!

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

#745

Post by adventured »

justin66 wrote: post #651
jessewmc wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The temperatures are very moderate in the winter, but the rain is bad. It can, and does, rain for multiple consecutive weeks in the winter. The lack of sun is even worse. It can have a very real effect on mood if you're from somewhere that gets more reasonable amounts of sunlight, which is pretty much anywhere else in Canada. I lived there for four years and I had a very tough time with the lack of sun. It can be ver…

Well, the relevant comparison is to the San Francisco Bay Area...

It's not even remotely close.

Vancouver: 160+ rainy days per year

San Francisco: ~50-60 would be typical (with 250+ sunny days per year). It had 66 rainy days last year for example. And just 42 in 2013.

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

#746

Post by emiliobumachar »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #714
muninn_ wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not impossible to impeach somebody.

It's like people don't remember that there was a president that called a press conference, spoke to the people, put on a jacket, got in a helicopter, and flew away from the White House forever.

News to me. Who are you referring to?

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

#747

Post by jpttsn »

mikeash wrote: post #556
jpttsn wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious: Do you think Hillary Clinton is still at risk of being jailed? I mean, do you generally believe campaign promises, or do you selectively believe them?

Are we just pretending that Rudy Giuliani didn't outright say this was what it was?

Not at all, but I don't trust Rudy Giuliani. There seems to be agreement that this administration lies in a new and blatant way. I want to stop taking their word for things across the board.

Part of that is not trusting their admissions of "guilt", the same way that I don't trust their admissions of "innocence".

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

#748

Post by adventured »

clamprecht wrote: post #4

Wow. We often wonder how the Bay Area would be unseated as startup capital of the world. Maybe it'll be the US's immigration problem.

How would switching to a merit based immigration system - copying Canada's system - unseat the Bay Area as the startup capital? It won't, at all. If anything switching our immigration priorities will dramatically boost the Bay Area. This thread is overflowing with what is essentially revenge fantasy.

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

#749

Post by adventured »

elif wrote: post #127
muninn_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a few people from outside the US are worried about visa issues before applying to an incubator doesn't spell the end of Silicon Valley. The money, talent, and infrastructure to support startups (and large tech companies for that matter) aren't going away anytime soon and likely wouldn't go away even if we completely completely halted green card holders. Not that I would ever advocate something like that.

I don't think it's "a few people." It is everyone holding or desiring a US visa that is worried. I would contend that it is only the extent of that fear that is variable. Maybe I am wrong and there are visa holders feeling absolute confidence at the moment, but I would like to hear why from even one before considering your "a few people" categorization as anything but spin.

> It is everyone holding or desiring a US visa that is worried

It's so far out of line of reason to believe that the US is going to basically end all - or any meaningful portion of - legal immigration, as to be nearly impossible to reply to. Where to start?

The US will switch, if anything, to a merit based system. Canada already uses just such a system. Nobody seems to be outraged about it, or proclaiming the end of Canada because of it. There's far too much emotion in this thread.

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

#750

Post by adventured »

Kluny wrote: post #203
drpgq wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, although taxes are a lot higher in Canada for anything beyond an average salary.

Yes, but you get healthcare and being non-white isn't illegal, so that helps. Also - not really? The highest federal tax bracket in Canada is 33%. The highest in the states is 39%. The highest provincial rate in BC is 12% and that's about the same as California. I'm sure there's a lot of variation depending on an individual's situation, but you're really deluding yourself if you think American taxes are low, for the…

> and being non-white isn't illegal

You sure about that? Canada is, 78% white, 92% white + asian, only 1.2% hispanic and only 2.9% black. 700 million hispanics in the Americas, and Canada somehow only has ~300,000. The US is around 15%-16% black by comparison, and 20% or more hispanic. Sure sounds like it may be illegal to be non-white in Canada, how else to explain the lack of diversity?

Post reply on HN