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Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

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Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#181

Post by ericmay »

parasubvert wrote: post #177
ericmay wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you will be met with help and kindness How is that different than the U.S.? Are refugees not met with help and kindness in America? > And even while waiting, we do not separate kids from you and put them in cages While I do not agree with this tactic, I also think that this paints an unfair picture, since Canada has never experienced immigration issues to the degree that the U.S. has. Maybe the U.S. should do what…

America historically greeted refugees with kindness. This changed significantly with the new administration in 2017. The US Asylum backlog jumped to 340,000 - up 10x since 2014. Certainly some of that is due to heightened applications, but a lot is due to antiquated systems in USCIS and political changes. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/u-s-claims-reducing-re... I’d also note in the Syrian refugee crisis, that…

I completely agree with ALL of your points here.

> we are about to see over a billion people displaced over the next 50 years

Yes. And this is worrisome because stable countries won't be able to "let them all in" (sorry not sure the best way to put that). Long-term it's going to be more sensible to stabilize unstable countries.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#182

Post by earth_walker »

tathougies wrote: post #141
sandworm101 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> nearly identical culture to the United States. Lol. Maybe a similar culture to some parts of California or Washington, and that is a stretch, but Vancouver is very very different than "the United States". Live in both for a while and all the little difference (the guns, health care, government, police, civil-military relations, the environment, land use, education etc) add up to markedly different approaches to li…

Have you been to Alberta? Vancouver is not representative of canada.

It seems you're insinuating that Alberta is somehow more (U.S.) 'American' than the rest of Canada.

I have lived in Alberta for over ten years, and though culturally distinct from the rest of Canada (as is every other province I've spent time in) Alberta's brand of rugged individualist / conservatism is still very Canadian.

And though we may look very different to the urbanites of GVRD (Vancouver and surrounding) and the GTA (Toronto and surrounding), you'll find many more similarities between us and those living in rural Canada with resource-based economies, like the people living in B.C.'s forestry-dependent areas, the northern prairies or NorthWest Ontario. The difference for us is that we have very vocal, oil-industry-controlled politicians and a population that is immediately suspicious of any time an easterner tries to tell us what to do.

Sometimes the easiest way to see our distinctiveness is by contrast - immediately evident when crossing over to even the closest border states.

I love Montana and its people, but boy do you know you're not in Canada anymore - roadways lined with advertisements; cops everywhere you look; huge rich/poor divides; razor wire, visible drug problems and ghettos in even the smallest cities; and a love of all things military.

All that to say, there's far more to being Albertan than oil, guns and god, and those three things don't make us a 'murican.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#183

Post by jjohansson »

Sytten wrote: post #179

Tech salaries in Canada are very low and I really hope this will raise the bar for everybody. Most of the talent (outside of Quebec) migrates south of the border at some point, because it makes no financial sense to stay. Innovation outside of Toronto is low/inexistent and it is hard to get funding. I am always amazed when founders make the national news here when they raise 1-2M$ CAD. At the same time, you have CEOs…

In 2019, PDFTron, a Vancouver-based tech company, received a USD $71 million investment from Silversmith Capital Partners (a Tier 1 growth equity firm).

Vancouver’s tech scene is exploding, with a number of top tier tech companies being based here (like Clio) and majors setting up dev offices (Shopify, Amazon, Microsoft).

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#184

Post by parasubvert »

jariel wrote: post #107

As a Candian, it seems to me so very pathetically and predictably Canadian to literally herald the surrender of your own industries to foreign takeover. Canada is (often) to tech what Mexico is to cars. Mexican 'assembly' of cars is fine and good, but they don't exactly move up the value chain from there. Canada produces a lot of decent tech people, who will work for 2/3 the wages, unfortunately, this doesn't map to…

Canada is already nearly as big as Mexico for cars: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_car_exp...

I’m not sure why you’re upset with the CBC over this, we’ve been a branch plant economy since the 1960s. A lot of this has to do with Canadian temperament and mindset, which isn’t particularly entrepreneurial due a dearth of leadership from its investor class.

There have been many tech darlings out of Canada over the years (top of my head - Shopify, Hootsuite, Flickr, Matrox, ATI, BioWare, Eidos, iStockPhoto, Nortel, Corel, BNR, Cognos, Delrina, Hummingbird, Newbridge, Jetform, RIM/Blackberry, OpenText, Mitel, Newbridge networks, QNX, Sierra Wireless, SMART technologies, Redknee, PointClickCare, Solace) but often a reasonable exit lies with pools of capital outside of the country such as IPOing in the US capital markets.

Which gets to my confusion over your complaint. The problem with Canada over the last 50+ Years is that its capital holders are extremely risk averse and largely old money. That’s changing with recent funds, but it takes time for that to lead to improved VC and other funding. But we see this problem in every industry. A major chunk of Canada’s Oil and Gas interests for example are owned by foreigners. I’m not sure what your suggested approach is — Government subsidized entrepreneurship? We already have that to some degree.

Even in the USA we are increasingly seeing grads taking the FAANG paycheque instead of doing a startup. The stress and market barriers are too high to make it worthwhile relative to the alternative of making $150k at age 22.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#185

Post by Invictus0 »

jariel wrote: post #107

As a Candian, it seems to me so very pathetically and predictably Canadian to literally herald the surrender of your own industries to foreign takeover. Canada is (often) to tech what Mexico is to cars. Mexican 'assembly' of cars is fine and good, but they don't exactly move up the value chain from there. Canada produces a lot of decent tech people, who will work for 2/3 the wages, unfortunately, this doesn't map to…

Not a Canadian, but Canada is leagues ahead of the US in a lot of important ways. In my opinion, at the level of nations, it's much better to be boringly mediocre than outrageously good or bad in any one way or another. Toronto is a first class city, like you said: what more "exceptionalism" do you need?

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#186

Post by parasubvert »

abtinf wrote: post #22

Part of the reason for this is that the Trump administration has made it very hard for Canadians working for tech companies to visit the US on business. I have friends who used to frequently and freely travel between the two countries for meetings, and now they all have corporate policies forbidding it. As is always the case with protectionist policies, the country imposing them experiences a net loss.

This is, as far as I can tell, completely false.

Things haven’t changed in any particular way on TN status, L status, or B-2 status.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#187

Post by stiray »

Sytten wrote: post #179

Tech salaries in Canada are very low and I really hope this will raise the bar for everybody. Most of the talent (outside of Quebec) migrates south of the border at some point, because it makes no financial sense to stay. Innovation outside of Toronto is low/inexistent and it is hard to get funding. I am always amazed when founders make the national news here when they raise 1-2M$ CAD. At the same time, you have CEOs…

I just love to hear this.

/sarcasm on

With 26 years in software development, low level linux (kernel "stuff") and low level windows (kernel "stuff" again), with work including from analyzing malware to writting DRM that was left unbroken for 3 years, to high level software, system administration on various unixes and unix like beasts, including low level networking, fluent in c, c++, asm x86/64, go and some "stuff" I am not proud off (c#, java, python, js, php), expirience in management, team leadership, working for bluechips, US three letter agencies and army (as a part of my previous jobs), annoyingly proficient in security (..., there is more, but who cares) I earn 24k netto euros a year and consider myself lucky, due to a fact that I cant move to another country based on broken marriage and my wish to still parent my kid every second week. Oh, you have 120k salery? I wouldnt complain if I were you.

/sarcasm off

Just my 5 cents, Instead of counting the money, concentrate on what makes you happy. You will pass better on long term. At the end there is not much you can take into grave. And money certanly doesnt make it softer.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#188

Post by TulliusCicero »

thecleaner wrote: post #103
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>real estate is still cheap, compared to the valley Everything in the world is cheap compared to the Valley, that any comparison is pretty much a meme at this point. You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that Munich real estate is cheap even when you account for local salaries. Munich is the embodiment of the Bay Area in Germany when accounting for living costs, except without the high paying jobs. I have m…

Why is job hopping frowned upon ? I mean this seems to be some ploy to prevent workers from increasing their market value. It seems weird that salaries are shit in Germany when in fact the country touts itself as one of engineers.

And yet Germany's engineer salaries are still substantially better than, say, France, let alone Spain or Italy.

In the large, European salaries for technical professionals are just way worse than American equivalents.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#189

Post by krrrh »

sandworm101 wrote: post #130
lucidone wrote: post #2

The cheap labour pool as a consequence of the weak Canadian dollar certainly helps, alongside having identical time zones and nearly identical culture to the United States. Lots of Canadian consultancies butter their bread with USD.

>> nearly identical culture to the United States. Lol. Maybe a similar culture to some parts of California or Washington, and that is a stretch, but Vancouver is very very different than "the United States". Live in both for a while and all the little difference (the guns, health care, government, police, civil-military relations, the environment, land use, education etc) add up to markedly different approaches to li…

I think anyone who had spent time living outside of North America will recognize that the cultures of Canada and the US are indeed nearly identical. Especially in the context of this thread, which is about the workplace.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#190

Post by andy9775 »

jariel wrote: post #144
graeme wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems shortsighted. Auto assembly workers don’t start car companies. But tech company workers do start companies. If people immigrate to canada instead of the us to work in tech, I would expect there to be more companies founded here eventually. Further, fewer caandians will go to the us if hiring rises. I can only imagine it will have upwards pressure on wages too, which will eventually help create a pool of pe…

I am not against Google hiring in Canada. I am against the narrative of this as equivalent to, or comparable to the Silicon Valley. Of course, it is 'good for Toronto' in many ways, there's little doubt. The Ontario government, during negotiations with Cisco for a juicy corporate subsidy, indicated that salaries are 'very competitive' and that they'd do 'anything to keep it that way'. Literally stating that he wanted…

"The Ontario government, during negotiations with Cisco for a juicy corporate subsidy, indicated that salaries are 'very competitive' and that they'd do 'anything to keep it that way'. Literally stating that he wanted to keep us 'poorer' to guarantee the jobs. (Sorry I can't find the reference)."

This was also a point made during the amazon pitch - cheap labour.

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