41–50 of 161 posts
> “It’s the Valley-or-bust mentality that breaks the ecosystem and really hurts Canada,” Gomez said. Canadian pride isn't enough to keep a company in Canada. There are real and significant economic incentives to move elsewhere. That said, it's disappointing that YC no longer supports Canadian companies.
Economic incentives are only one of the many incentives weighing on the scales. There are others.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's probably no nationality easier for tech workers to migrate to the U.S. with than Canada, though. (And vice versa.)
Not at all. The only benefit Canadians get compared to others is the opportunity to work for employers on TN status which is a temporary non-immigrant-intent work visa. You're not even allowed to want to immigrate if you have one. And given the political climate there's a chance it will go away at any time.
That doesn't strike me as "not at all" when the TN status is 1/ effectively a work visa, whether you like the strings attached or not, and 2/ a foot in the door that lets you move to a more permissive status down the line. A Waterloo or UofT grad can go from applying to a US job to their first day in a few weeks, and the only interaction they'll have with the immigration system will be getting asked for paperwork at the border. Compare that to a British or Japanese new grad, for whom there is essentially very few options unless they have excellent connections or that they display enough extraordinary abilities to be eligible for O-1.
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> No Canadian VCs Pretty much. Israel [0], China [1], and increasingly India [2][3] worked on resolving this issue by establishing funds of funds that partnered with private sector players by matching dollar-to-dollar with them to help build a VC ecosystem. It's the same problem in the EU as well despite ECB proclamations. Heck, Norway's (ik not EU, it's EFTA) PIF has been conspicuously absent from any sort of statme…
I think our biggest problem in Canada is total addressable market is small.. We're 40M people (compared to what, 350M in the US, and 900M in the EU), and we're directly next door to the largest startup economy in the world. So not only do we have fewer customers, we're competing against an economic juggernaut that shares our broad business rules, our culture and language (with one exception) and can market to us thro…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economic incentives are only one of the many incentives weighing on the scales. There are others.
Like which?
Fairly senior dev, US citizen here (20 years experience).
After what I've seen this past year, but more the past month, I will work for peanuts for a path to citizenship in Canada. US in 5 years is not a place I want to be, looking into all options and very serious.
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Much like the US, the regulations and culture varies depending on which province (state) you're in, so someone starting a business in Alberta could have a very different experience than someone in Ontario.
Somewhat. Our provinces have fewer rights, powers and responsibilities than US states. The experience is more homogenous. It's only a nightmare if you hate all taxes and labour rights. So, you know, YC
Since this is purely about ownership structure and equity governing law, I'm curious what the intersection you're seeing between these terms and "labour rights" are. We're a US company with employees in Europe (not even an HQ in Europe, just employees there), and I've learned more about European labor law idiosyncracies over the last few years than over the whole rest of my career, because I've had to.
> “It’s the Valley-or-bust mentality that breaks the ecosystem and really hurts Canada,” Gomez said. Canadian pride isn't enough to keep a company in Canada. There are real and significant economic incentives to move elsewhere. That said, it's disappointing that YC no longer supports Canadian companies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually remarkable how difficult it's made. My only experience is here in BC. In a couple of years I've learned that it's practically punitive, and you have to want to do it really badly. The risk to reward ration is abysmal. I only continue because it's more of a passion project than an economically viable, sensible project. It could become one eventually, but my god, I'd hate to be doing this without a full t…
Can you give more details? I'm simply a sole proprietorship in Canada so not sure what I'm getting myself into.
Canada's economy is dominated by a few big companies because the government makes too many rules. It costs too much to start a business here. In politics, only two parties really matter. This creates a closed system where big players stay big and new competition is crushed by red tape. Regulatory frameworks impose prohibitive compliance costs, favoring established incumbents over startups. Key sectors like banking, t…