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How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

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Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#111

Post by gdsdfe »

freeone3000 wrote: post #86
gdsdfe wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Speaking French in the workplace is legally required" I don't think that's true, this is a big misconception. Unless you're working in a shop or something where you interact with clients directly you don't have to speak French. I work for a multinationale that have over 1000 employees in Montréal and everybody speaks English internally same fory previous job a small company of 40ish people

English isn't disallowed, but broadcast emails must be also in French, as well as posters, and HR materials, and so on. The OQLF was on our case about a copier that was English-only during our last inspection.

yeah I hear you and while I totally disagree with OQLF practices in the grand scheme of things I don't think it's a big deal, especially for a tech companies ... most of the posters/HR stuff is probably done by bilingual people anyways. The real shortage/competition is for engineers.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#112

Post by gabbo »

danlugo92 wrote: post #80
jariel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Canadian companies that are 'keeping salaries' low, it's Valley Companies (and to some extent, American companies) that are paying a lot. Also - the USD varies at 1 to 1.5 CDN that has tremendous comparable effects. The 'reason' is that a vastly disproportionate amount of the surpluses go to the winners. '2cnd place is for chumps' - at least in the context of 'winner takes all' games. Everywhere outside of t…

>Who can blame anyone with 'no ties' to Canada moving on for 2x salary? Does that salary increase make up for the lost gov benefits (free healthcate etc?)

Yes. Absolutely. It so much more than makes up for lost government benefits.

Health insurance working for a decent US tech company generally requires some out of pocket, but the amounts are really quite modest. Premiums are typically mostly paid by the employer and not considered part of your compensation. If you're single you'll probably pay nothing for insurance premiums and potentially up to a few thousand out of pocket if you're a heavy user of health care, and maybe $5k in the absolute worst case (and the out of pocket is often tax free). If you've got a family, you might pay a couple thousand per year in premiums and $10k in out of pocket maximum. These numbers are honestly chump change for people who are earning $50k-250k more, with better career prospects and more high paying employers to choose from if a particular job doesn't work out.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#113

Post by MattGaiser »

The bit about accelerators is interesting to me. I was involved in QICSI, a Canadian startup accelerator as part of one of the startups there. I was then part of another startup from that same accelerator. Have encountered several others that have bounced from accelerator to accelerator. And it does almost seem like a very milestone and very checklist driven thing.

They all seemed to just be jumping from accelerator to accelerator. Does that happen in the USA? Do you go somewhere else after Y Combinator?

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#114

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

coldtea wrote: post #57
pm90 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is the only social media company in “FAANG”. Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google have, I would argue, materially changed our lives for the better. They created the smartphones that are now ubiquitous and that opened up a whole marketplace of app based tech. They literally created cloud computing which has allowed more companies to focus on product ideas and get off the ground quickly. E-commerce (disrupting re…

Notice though how none of the above looks into second order effects. Nor is "disrupting retail" or "disrupting Hollywood" automatically good in themselves... (e.g. a question would be "disrupting towards the better?").

Second order effects are important to consider, but the idea that the world would be better off if nobody had ever built something like Netflix or Amazon is... hard to take seriously.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#115

Post by ramraj07 »

Tsarbomb wrote: post #95
ramraj07 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary difference between Canada and the US was that Canada was small/smart/lucky enough to enact some social nets before the world became too easy to manipulate by media and the internet.

Not really. Our first attempts at universal healthcare involved general strikes from doctors and the government standing its ground. Some of the most important legislation and infrastructure in Canadian history was done under minority governments have to work with other political parties. I would say it would it comes down to a much healthier government with more churn and not two different flavours of the same polit…

My implication is that the political systems in most nations are becoming more recalcitrant to acts that cause massive overhauls due to deliberate beurecracy. I would be curious if you and others think that Canada would be able to pass any new massive social program today.

So what we have now is that some countries ossified after passing lots of welfare systems while others ossified before. The ones where welfare is present end up serving a higher quality of life for its lowest ladder of folk, ensuring a better scenario for them to not radicalize much (just comparatively, look at France).

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#116

Post by HDMI_Cable »

blueblisters wrote: post #93
somerandomqaguy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now that Amazon, Microsoft and Google are setting up shop right here in Canada, the talent drain away from Canadian companies is only accelerating. Maybe. Canada is bringing 400,000+ new immigrants per year until 2023 for permanent residence status, most of which are skilled workers of some kind. Probably a safe bet between that those three are setting up shop here in part because they can bring in international tal…

> Canada is bringing 400,000+ new immigrants per year until 2023 for permanent residence status Canada is adding > 1% of its population in immigrants every year? I am curious if that is sustainable politically and economically. I suspect this will only drive down tech wages even further and put pressure on local housing markets, utilities, healthcare and social programs.

There's this movement in Canadian political circles that calls for us to have a population of ~100 million by 2100.[1]

Their argument is essentially that Canada has a lot of space (especially with climate change and all [2]), and by bringing in a lot of people from other countries, that will make Canada a more competitive country on the world stage.

In my personal opinion, I don't have anything against the movement, its just that all of these people are coming to either Toronto or Vancouver, and so those cities are becoming more and more competitive, meanwhile more conservative regions like Alberta and Quebec have a labour shortage.

Also, this might have a weird effect on French (I'm a french speaker so I might be a bit biased), but a lot of the people that are coming in right now (mainly from Eastern Europe, India, & China) only speak English, and not French. So we're seeing French go the same way as Scots or Gaelic did in the UK -- slowly dying.

Overall though, as long as we ensure that the population is distributed (I guess high housing prices are a good thing), and that people learn French, the 100 million thing isn't too bad.

--- [1] - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-needs-to-get-to-100-milli...

[2] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Ko... - Note right now, Only Toronto - Windsor has that light blue climate (same weather as New England), and in 2100 most of Canada will, while southern Ontario and BC will have the same weather as Washington or Normandy.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#117

Post by HDMI_Cable »

MartianSquirrel wrote: post #35

Disclaimer: Clearly biased, I am from Montreal. > That’s part of why I think that if any city in Canada has the potential to actually develop a Bay Area grade startup scene (smaller, sure, but actually the real thing), it’s clearly Montreal I would have to agree with the conclusion of this article, Montreal has: (i) 5 universities very close to each other(i.e. 10 to 20 minutes walk from each other) + Great public tra…

I love Montreal too, but being legally required to speak French drives away a lot of people who would normally come live here. Anecdotally, I know quite a few people who chose Vancouver and Edmonton over Montreal, partly because they were afraid of the language / culture surrounding the language.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#118

Post by slothtrop »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #98
blueblisters wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada is bringing 400,000+ new immigrants per year until 2023 for permanent residence status Canada is adding > 1% of its population in immigrants every year? I am curious if that is sustainable politically and economically. I suspect this will only drive down tech wages even further and put pressure on local housing markets, utilities, healthcare and social programs.

Canada also adds 1% to its population in babies, who can't work at all, and are fully dependent on others for housing, healthcare, and social programs.

This is also a product of immigration. The fertility rate is otherwise stagnant.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#119

Post by HDMI_Cable »

ramraj07 wrote: post #115
Tsarbomb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Our first attempts at universal healthcare involved general strikes from doctors and the government standing its ground. Some of the most important legislation and infrastructure in Canadian history was done under minority governments have to work with other political parties. I would say it would it comes down to a much healthier government with more churn and not two different flavours of the same polit…

My implication is that the political systems in most nations are becoming more recalcitrant to acts that cause massive overhauls due to deliberate beurecracy. I would be curious if you and others think that Canada would be able to pass any new massive social program today. So what we have now is that some countries ossified after passing lots of welfare systems while others ossified before. The ones where welfare is…

It wouldn't be too hard. Again we don't have the House / Senate split that the US does, and our parties (even the conservatives) are not too against new social programs, so the main reason why we haven't piloted a UBI or affordable housing program is because the parties (especially one in particular) only push legislation if there's already a lot of momentum behind it.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#120

Post by slothtrop »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #116
blueblisters wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada is bringing 400,000+ new immigrants per year until 2023 for permanent residence status Canada is adding > 1% of its population in immigrants every year? I am curious if that is sustainable politically and economically. I suspect this will only drive down tech wages even further and put pressure on local housing markets, utilities, healthcare and social programs.

There's this movement in Canadian political circles that calls for us to have a population of ~100 million by 2100.[1] Their argument is essentially that Canada has a lot of space (especially with climate change and all [2]), and by bringing in a lot of people from other countries, that will make Canada a more competitive country on the world stage. In my personal opinion, I don't have anything against the movement,…

We're certainly not building fast enough if that's the plan in earnest. Exceeding a certain rate of immigration also suppresses wages, according to this - https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-001-x/89-001-x2007001... . That is a ticking time bomb for public discontent as we'll simultaneously be dealing with increasing automation.

In theory, it could be done well, but it won't. All these other factors will be ignored which is just going to lead to a long wave of Conservative government in the future.

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