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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

#121

Post by HDMI_Cable »

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #28

I’m 10 years into my career and been in Toronto the entire time. I often feel like I’m slowly wasting my talent here that would be better utilized somewhere else. Maybe Shenzen or the West coast. I work days at a job and nights and weekends on my business. The business is doing good, it’s slowly scaling, just a long slog. In the last 10 years I worked at around 15 different places as a contractor. I met a lot of deve…

That's true. Toronto is a lot like Chicago, where we have the infrastructure and the money to be great, but there just isn't that same drive that SF and NYC have.

One thing to note is that I think the parent company for Tim Horton's is now based in Toronto, albeit majority owned by a Brazilian company.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#122

Post by Yizahi »

coldtea wrote: post #33
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about size, at least not directly. FAANG companies are big in large part because they radically changed the world for the better, and most people who identify as part of the "startup scene" are hoping they can be a part of something similar.

> because they radically changed the world for the better Did Facebook "radically changed the world for the better"? Did Twitter? Did Google, for that matter? Is the control it has amassed, and its imperial impact of business and ideas (and the web itself) a net positive to a good search engine and a OK email service (both of which have gotten worse over time)?

I dislike all those companies and net negative impact by all of them is undeniable. They do sell our "private" data, they do foster bad behaviors in humans. They monopolized whole industries and cemented bad ideas everywhere.

But if we would assess them overall - they indeed has changed the world for the better (in my opinion). The communication benefits provided by them to humanity is immense. Nokia's slogan - "connecting people" is the important thing, which force accelerated a lot of things on the planet. Yeah, maybe in some other timeline different companies may have done it better, but we are not debating hypothetical, we just observe what has already happened.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#123

Post by HDMI_Cable »

Dan42 wrote: post #105

> If Montreal weren’t in Quebec, it would be an unstoppable startup scene. I'm really puzzled by that statement. I don't see Quebec as having anything particularly different from other provinces that is harmful to startups. French? Everybody in Montreal speaks English anyway, and developing i18n software is super-trivial if you do it from the start; not something that would impact startup velocity in any meaningful w…

Honestly, from what I've seen, people really are just too scared to speak French. People will pick Toronto or Vancouver over Montreal, mostly because of the language.

I haven't seen anything to suggest that Quebecois are disadvantaged, maybe except for the fact that anglo VCs will mainly try and fund anglo startups? Being bilingual is a big perk in Canada, so many from Montreal might have a leg up in that sense. But I could be wrong though.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#124

Post by x86ARMsRace »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #56
chongli wrote: post #36

It's a difference of cultures. Canadian culture traditionally focuses less on making a lot of noise, standing out from the crowd, etc. Canadians are almost infamous for politeness, especially compared to Americans. Now, couple this with the ease at which Canadian engineers can get jobs in the US and the picture emerges, bright and clear. Any Canadian with a lot of ambition may be alienated by the relaxed culture in C…

You didn’t go over the possibility that Canadians may prefer to live in Canada compared to the United States. Last time I checked there wasn’t a race war and a group of belligerents storming the capitol in Canada.

Exactly. As a Canadian, I don't have to worry about my family being harmed by racially motivated violence and discrimination. Especially since some are in demographics who disproportionally experience racially motivated violence.

Not everyone in the world idealizes the American tech sector as much as America thinks they do. Personally, I'm more drawn to the EU tech sector.

Finally, Canada's tech sector isn't worse somehow. Canadians are different, therefore our Canadian sector is going to be different too. Canadian tech companies ("startups" specifically) tend to be more driven by stability than generating the largest valuation possible. The author completely neglects the impact that culture has on the tech sector. This is a common mistake when comparing things between America and Canada.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#125

Post by HDMI_Cable »

RavlaAlvar wrote: post #39

As someone just applied for immigration to Canada, this post trigger my anxiety.

Honestly, you'll be fine. As long as you don't live on Granville in Vancouver, or Front street in Toronto, housing prices are too bad, and incomes aren't too low.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#126

Post by busrf »

boc wrote: post #47
arcosdev wrote: post #45

Good? Trying to be like SV and push Canada in that direction is toxic. I agree salaries should be better, but they should be better across all sectors, not just technology.

Not sure if I follow this logic. Are you saying that importing SV salaries and culture will create a Dutch disease effect in the broader Canadian economy?

We already have petroleum Dutch disease, switching to another Dutch disease would be very welcome at this point (:

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#127

Post by antoniuschan99 »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #121
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #28

I’m 10 years into my career and been in Toronto the entire time. I often feel like I’m slowly wasting my talent here that would be better utilized somewhere else. Maybe Shenzen or the West coast. I work days at a job and nights and weekends on my business. The business is doing good, it’s slowly scaling, just a long slog. In the last 10 years I worked at around 15 different places as a contractor. I met a lot of deve…

That's true. Toronto is a lot like Chicago, where we have the infrastructure and the money to be great, but there just isn't that same drive that SF and NYC have. One thing to note is that I think the parent company for Tim Horton's is now based in Toronto, albeit majority owned by a Brazilian company.

Just checked. Restaurant Brands International which also owns Popeyes, Burger King. Is majority owned by 3g capital (the brazilian company at ~30%). Famous activist investor Bill Ackmans fund owns a smaller chunk!

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#128

Post by jariel »

MattGaiser wrote: post #109
jariel wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all inputs, which are nice, but the outputs which we care about, are negligible. Where are the exceptional companies employing a lot of people, doing 'important' or 'impactfull' things? Or the exits? Or even externalized value creation? Edit: I will give an interesting answer to my own equation and that is Element AI. A ridiculous concept from a startup perspective, but very rational regional investment arg…

What did you not like about Element AI's model? I have no idea what it was really, I am just curious.

Element was a group of ex-consultants and a bunch of AI researchers with no market, no product plan.

They were going to do some 'consulting' type work, and then ostensibly use the results of that to come up with product offers.

The obvious fallibility in that is:

1) The companies they are working with will not give up their data and allow them to be used in Element Products. No way. In some cases, maybe for a fee, but in most cases it's not even viable.

2) Making viable products is really hard. You don't 'start with AI and then pick a field'. You need to understand the industry, the channels, develop relationships, develop a brand etc. and have something that's really hot.

Element eventually launched a handful of bland, generic off-the-shelf style AI products for image recognition and a few other things, each one a little bit interesting but ironically none of them worthy of really being a startup on their own.

3) Consultants and Researchers are not Startup types. Of course they can be, but not by default. Definitely some ex-Phds and ex-consultants could launch a great company, but otherwise hiring a bunch of them for big salaries and putting them in a room is not how startups form.

They work really hard, they are really smart, but they're not generally very good at finding seams and opening new markets.

4) Generally the way it's done is 'start small' and when there is 'product market fit' you scale. So Element didn't fit that model. They took on $100's of millions before any kind of product-market-fit and ran around in circles burning it.

It would have been nicer to start with a team of 10, find resonance, then start to pull in the talent.

But in some situations, raising $150M with government and institutional backers is easier than raising from traditional VC directly. Like a big government backed initiative with all the flair, PR, announcements.

The CEO of Element was literally on a public Zoom with the PM of Canada recently.

That kind of company.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#129

Post by HDMI_Cable »

slothtrop wrote: post #120
HDMI_Cable wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ignore…

I don't think the 100 million figure is exact, its more of ambitious target that we'll try to get to, but ultimately won't affect much if we're ~20 million short or something.

or sure wages are lower because of it. But I don't think there'll be much discontent just because immigration is not as heated an issue in the US, and we have more room to grow (especially on the infrastructure side).

However, we do have to consider that immigration does allow for businesses to grow faster, because our main bottleneck -- population, becomes less of a concern. Automation is a big concern in this regard, but we can just kick that can down the road.

Re: How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay

#130

Post by antoniuschan99 »

modo_mario wrote: post #60
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #28

I’m 10 years into my career and been in Toronto the entire time. I often feel like I’m slowly wasting my talent here that would be better utilized somewhere else. Maybe Shenzen or the West coast. I work days at a job and nights and weekends on my business. The business is doing good, it’s slowly scaling, just a long slog. In the last 10 years I worked at around 15 different places as a contractor. I met a lot of deve…

>My last point is that there is a big problem with startups being acquired by US companies. Tim Hortons got bought out by BK, North got bought out by Google. When I first started, this notable design company behind Medium, Teehan+Lax got bought out by Facebook. Basically this. US tech companies are sitting on such stacks of cash seeking for avenues to expand in line with the others that most Canadian or European comp…

I really hope Shopify succeeds and there are more successful companies like it that emerge from here. Ecobee is another Canadian startup that seems to be doing good

I read somewhere that the sale price of Canadian companies to US companies notoriously low.

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