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Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

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Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#691
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here (who lives outside of Canada but recently did a stint there for a bit) and this will sound negative but f-it. Canadian culture sucks when it comes to trying new things. Canada has some extra safety net but the culture is puritanical and conservative and nobody wants to go out on a limb and try something new and crazy. Not like Americans. Those that do are constantly questioned by everybody. The idea of…

The liberalness of Canada is overhyped. The reality is Canada is deeply conservative. It's possible to have universal health care and be conservative, that's only a oxymoron in the US. To quote this excellent article[1]: "the default setting of the Canadian male: a dull but stern dad, who, under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense, conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might ro…

Awesome article, and should be required reading for anyone who has only heard of Jordan Peterson through his fans.

I'll say that there's a huge difference in values between the big cities, the suburbs, and Alberta.

Alberta is much more socially conservative than most of the states (if you ever see a Canuck unironically call someone a "cuck", 9/10 times they're Albertan).

Montreal/QC are cool but still hosts an extremely ethnonationalist element that's all but crippled their local economy (remember that a little over a year ago, we had a terror attack where some altright guy shot up a mosque in QC).

Toronto is incredibly progressive (I'd argue it's the most diverse city on the planet), but is surrounded by some of the worst, overtly racist, politicians you'll ever meet. Because of a first-past-the-post voting system, even though they're in the minority, the vote among reasonable people is split among reasonable candidates, and hateful buffoons get a consistent voting bloc. (The late) Rob Ford was mayor, in spite of making violent rants, being repeatedly publicly drunk, using every racial epitaph in the book, smoking crack (sometimes on video), and smoking crack with his KKK-member sister. His brother, reported former drug dealer Doug Ford, now stands a real chance of being Ontario's next premier.

Vancouver is a great city, but somewhat isolated from the rest of Canada. Toronto's pretty expensive, but Vancouver is even worse. Unlike Toronto, though, there aren't a lot of options for anyone but the most wealthy who want to live there. While the Conservative party is very weak there (they didn't even have a location there hosting the federal leadership convention, when even people in PEI had one in driving distance), BC's influence federally is minimal. You could argue they're becoming something of an oligarchy due to the huge influence of corporate money. You either need to have a high-paying job, or be very old, to live there.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#692
post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my point is that it is observably easier for a CS professional to move to California than to Canada Pretty sure you are missing some key details, you can get a Canadian permanent residency if you the required number of points which are based on your education, language, work experience etc. For majority of the cases if you have the points you will get the PR visa. Once you get the visa you can move to Canada and lo…

You missed the moment when I mentioned the guy has been waiting for reply for 5 years. It is inefficient if the goal is to attract more qualified professionals. It would be easier for him to find a job offer from US, or Swiss, or German-based company, and settle in one of these countries in about a year. I'm not talking about getting citizenship, of course, but live&work permissions. Maybe, it's getting harder in US…

> You missed the moment when I mentioned the guy has been waiting for reply for 5 years.

As I said you are missing some details, people get a resident visa in 1 year even if they are outside Canada, so either you dont know the full story or your friend is probably misleading you.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#693
post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not all that construction is related to real-estate. Still real-estate as a % of GDP eclipses "mining, Oil & Gas". http://www.investorsfriend.com/canadian-gdp-canadian-imports...

My point is that a chart like that doesn't even hint at how much of that "real estate" activity is a direct result of the needs of "conservative" industries. It certainly stands to reason that something like resource extraction is not just land-intensive but is intensive in changes to land ownership/tenancy. I'm pretty confident that someone who, according to that chart, is in the "real estate" industry who works sel…

I'm pretty confident that residential real-estate activity (people selling houses to each other) in major urban centres (eg: YVR, GTA) eclipses that of mining towns.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#694
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big 5 new grad salary in the bay area (and Seattle for Amazon) is a microcosm. Those kinds of salaries aren't sustainable for most companies.

> You won't even get those salaries from the big 5 outside of the bay area. Flat out wrong. FAANG will absolutely give you similar salaries in metro areas like Seattle, NYC, Austin. Where are you getting your data?

I'm talking specifically about new grad salaries. It's not public information, but perusing glassdoor, H1B, acquaintances, that type of thing. I thought FAANG all adjust for location, with Bay Area being at the top. Is there any evidence that starting salaries are the same regardless of location?

It isn't in London compared to the Bay Area, nor was it in Chicago when I lived there, based on people I knew at some of those companies. This is the first time I've heard that starting salaries are identical regardless of location. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#695
post #503
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here (who lives outside of Canada but recently did a stint there for a bit) and this will sound negative but f-it. Canadian culture sucks when it comes to trying new things. Canada has some extra safety net but the culture is puritanical and conservative and nobody wants to go out on a limb and try something new and crazy. Not like Americans. Those that do are constantly questioned by everybody. The idea of…

Agree completely. Born and raised in Toronto. Canadians are nice and the diversity is great. But San Francisco was a breath of fresh air I didn't even know I needed until I came here. Toronto feels so rigid in comparison. I don't want to ever leave California.

Is "Toronto the Good" still thrown about much?

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aggressively encourage/fund/facilitate startups. They tried that a few times. I know because I was an advisor to one of the biggest incubators in Canada. The government even gives cash grants to startups. But as soon as the company gets big, they either 1) open an engineering office in the Bay Area or 2) Sell, and the move to the Bay Area because they were just acquired by a Bay Area company who is making them move…

> They tried that a few times. I know because I was an advisor to one of the biggest incubators in Canada. The government even gives cash grants to startups. This is news to me. I tried have tried talking to an incubator several times and every time they tell me to come back when I have $10k/mo in revenue. Sorry but I have a full time job and I can't grow a business to 10k/mo without some help. Seems to me like they…

Unfortunately that is the nature of the Canadian beast which fears risk hence why we have the brain drain problem.

It's also very telling when you see American incubators/investors tie directly into universities to get people funded; They clearly see the talent and opportunities and want to get into it very early on while the Canadian incubators and governments want to be risk averse and then cry foul when people move south. Sadly I don't think this will change anytime soon.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#697
post #134
post #66

Canada is in a really tough spot here. I've always admired Canadian culture/values, and in the abstract, would love to live in Canada one day. However, as a Software developer, the compensation and opportunities that one can find in SF/Seattle/NYC dwarf anything in Canada. Until this changes, Canada is always going to lose its brightest engineers, which will in turn worsen the problem even further. Some solutions I c…

Canadian here (who lives outside of Canada but recently did a stint there for a bit) and this will sound negative but f-it. Canadian culture sucks when it comes to trying new things. Canada has some extra safety net but the culture is puritanical and conservative and nobody wants to go out on a limb and try something new and crazy. Not like Americans. Those that do are constantly questioned by everybody. The idea of…

"""The idea of being an entrepreneur, in the GTA especially, is buying a second house in the suburbs and hoping the housing market continues rising."""

... or a condo to put on Airbnb.

You are definitely onto something when you say that there are some deep cultural issues within Canada; Look at RIM, the company believed that its central business customers cared more about security and efficient communication and that the iPhone presented no threat to them. The iPhone was just a crazy idea to them, who would want to use that clunker with a horrible battery life and browse the net on it?

Canada has talent, without a doubt, but it also keeps people subdued as you stated because they are constantly questioned by everyone else. Canadians are a lot like accountants, they want to buy that fancy Harley and take it out on the road and live a little, but only on the weekends. :)

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re welcome to try passing one in California. It’s unconstitutional and most people with appreciated home values can’t afford to pay it.

How is tax unconstitutional? If you allow a 1% LVT to accrue as a charge on the value of the home, that's only paid on disposal, there's no affordability problem either. Own a $2m piece of land at age 18, each year 1% of the value gets added as a charge. Die age 108 and 80% of the land value is then taken to pay the back-charges, leaving 20% for the estate.

> How is tax unconstitutional?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_218_(19...

Proposing it as a sales tax might avoid Prop 13, but continues the problem where new buyers fund the state budget and homeowners/Baby Boomers get everything for free.

Also, schools and local services might not get funded every year, I assume the rate of sales isn't constant.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree there's more ambition/drive in the US (Just observed, never having worked there), but there's lots here too. People do start companies. I think the bay area tends to do a lot more experimentation darwinian style, but I suspect it's because they can (more seed money/angels, etc)

It's the East Coast vs West Coast mentality. West coast has always been about experiment wheareas east coast is more conservative. I've always wondered if it was because the Europeans took hold of the East coast first and it was only the more brave who would take on the Westword journey. Perhaps that mentality is still engrained in the culture? I think Dragons Den vs Shark Tank is a clear example of how much stronger…

> West coast has always been about experiment wheareas east coast is more conservative.

This is just flat out wrong and a bit egotistical. Now the west coast thinks it’s the “experimenters” rolls eyes

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the East Coast vs West Coast mentality. West coast has always been about experiment wheareas east coast is more conservative. I've always wondered if it was because the Europeans took hold of the East coast first and it was only the more brave who would take on the Westword journey. Perhaps that mentality is still engrained in the culture? I think Dragons Den vs Shark Tank is a clear example of how much stronger…

> West coast has always been about experiment wheareas east coast is more conservative. This is just flat out wrong and a bit egotistical. Now the west coast thinks it’s the “experimenters” rolls eyes

True that's an over generalization!

I don't think it's egotistical though.

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