
Why Canada Has No Big Tech Companies - liquimoon
http://blog.contentdj.com/2013/07/20/why-canada-has-no-big-tech-companies/
======
rogerbinns
One thing that is rarely stated is a California law that things you do on your
own equipment and time belong to you, not your employer. (Conflicts of
interest aside.)

This let people experiment on the side, which sometimes failed, but sometimes
discovered something useful. It takes some of the risk out of startups in the
very early stages. By contrast my employer in the UK at the time claimed that
anything I invented while employed by them (eg new cat food) would be owned by
them, no matter how unrelated and no employer equipment used.

~~~
jiggy2011
Do you know what the legal basis for this is in the UK? I'm curious and google
doesn't seem to be giving me anything useful.

I also don't see how this could practically apply to all intellectual property
you create whilst employed otherwise you would be open to being sued for
posting on a blog since you are distributing the companies IP (i.e the words
you wrote) without the companies permission.

~~~
rogerbinns
The employment contracts will include clauses to that effect. All the company
has to do is wait till you do something that appears successful and then jump
in. When I worked in the UK all employment contracts I was given also
prohibited any work elsewhere without company permission - eg you couldn't
also work part time at a local supermarket. That is something I have never
seen in California employment contracts.

An example of California law working is that the founders of Hotmail were
working for other companies when they wondered why you couldn't access email
in a browser. eBay was a similar hobby project.

~~~
jiggy2011
I'm curious how enforceable this clause would be in the UK since it is usually
considered to have more employee-favoured legislation than the US.

~~~
hexagonc
You forget that we're comparing employment law in one US state versus the
employment law in a whole nation.

~~~
jiggy2011
Huh? I'm just asking a question.

------
devbug
I have to disagree with Terry's sentiment.

It's impudent to Vancouver's culture--and more generally the world--to
insinuate that we're "blindly [competing] to build the next Silicon Valley".
We're not. Canada's not. Vancouver's liberal lifestyle is innate, not
superficial, not a failed attempt to clone Silicon Valley. And our immigration
policy is definitely not to "bring immigrant entrepreneurs together"; it's the
result of a small population, the demand for skilled workers[1], and the
correction of a historically xenophobic foreign policy. This creates a large
influx* of liberal and skilled immigrants--known risk takers. Hence the
entrepreneurial honeypot (our social programs help). It's necessity that's
bred Vancouver as a technological center, not ambition. Thus, similarities to
Silicon Valley are purely coincidental, or are the result of correlated
effects rising from the increasingly entrepreneurial working force.

As for investors? I don't know enough to comment.

[1]:
[http://www.engineerscanada.ca/files/w_Engineering_Labour_Mar...](http://www.engineerscanada.ca/files/w_Engineering_Labour_Market_in_Canada_oct_2012.pdf)
[2]:
[http://www.gamedevmap.com/index.php?query=Vancouver](http://www.gamedevmap.com/index.php?query=Vancouver)

*: Immigration levels have been relatively low, recently

~~~
liquimoon
Don't get me wrong. Vancouver is a much better city to live in. I love it
here, and it's where I will eventually settle down.

My point is on the investors' side. Investors play a big role in the tech
startup ecosystem.

When you have investors who don't get tech and who just want to get rich
quickly, you run into serious problems on the road to build the next billion
dollar company.

------
endergen
I'm originally from Vamcouver and spent the majority of my 20s there working
in the Games Industry before switching more to web and mobile and then moving
to the US for last 5 years. So I've obsessed and tracked this topic. I've
lived in many States in the US as well as Montreal in Candada.

I think reading Steve Blank's Secret History of Silicon Valley gave me the
best break through in understanding of why Silicon Valley is so dominant in
tech. [http://steveblank.com/secret-history/](http://steveblank.com/secret-
history/)

There's just been decades and decades and billions of even World War and Cold
War money poured into into it's infrastructure. The shear amount of money and
momentum of peak US effort seems nearly impossible to catch up to.

My best advice to other locations is to tie into SV as best as you can and of
course focus on getting to scale by bringing in external to your local economy
revenue and partnerships to bootstrap, but regardless it's gonna be a long
haul. SV is the Holliwood of programmers and its best to acknowledge that. If
you are an actor in Canada you know you are likely going to stay small time
unless you go down North West for example and break out or stick to a niche.

~~~
amix
Location was important some years ago, but I think it's less and less relevant
now. I think you can create amazing technology anywhere (in Latin America, in
Europe, in Asia etc.)

Skype is a great example of this: they created a billion dollar company in
Europe; and most of the development was done in Estonia (a country of about
1.3 million people, much less than most bigger cities).

Asia, especially Taiwan and South Korea, have some amazing examples as well
(like HTC, Samsung, Asus etc.)

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, but it was a big deal 10 years ago, and still is today.

And it may still be relevant because of face-to-face interactions. No,
Hangouts won't cut it

And Github has probably done a lot for remote work, but there's still a gap

------
coldtea
> _Why Canada Has No Big Tech Companies_

Here's an explanation:

Because Canada prefers many more smaller companies, that actually employ
people, instead of few billion dollar tech darlings with a sub par personel
and even less taxes paid?

How about: why California is bankrupt, as a state, and with large swaths of
the population in utter poverty, despite having the worlds largest tech
companies?

~~~
prostoalex
California employees pay state income and sales taxes. If you broke up a large
company employing 10,000 Californians into 100 small companies employing 100
Californians each, not much would change.

I refer you to historical growth of California revenues
[http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/docu...](http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/documents/CHART-J.pdf)
It's boom-driven, so you get revenue shortfalls during bust years, but on the
aggregate the revenues are growing - the $97 billion of revenues in 2013-2014
budget years is still higher than 5 or 10 or 15 years ago.

Perhaps if your revenue is consistently growing, and you still cannot run a
balanced budget, the problem might be on the spending side?

~~~
elangoc
Yeah, the Liberal types like their social programs, and the Conservative types
like their lower taxes, and no one has actually tried to reconcile those two
opposing pulls.

I don't know why that obvious contradiction was never tackled. I would like to
think it's because the Hollywood execs of SoCal and the ex-hippie/Silicon
Valley combo of NorCal are so geographically far apart that they don't talk,
but that's too simplistic, I'm sure.

~~~
jjindev
Both Hollywood and Silicon Valley have what the economists call Cumulative
Advantage. IOW, network effects with critical mass make them "the" destination
for a people with a certain dream.

------
Mikeb85
The fact that Canada doesn't have a bunch of over-valued VC funded firms
doesn't mean we are unsuccessful in tech, or that we don't have any big tech
companies.

Not sure what definition of 'big' the auther is using, but CGI has revenue of
10+ billion per year (more than double that of Yahoo), RIM also has revenues
of over 10 billion (despite their recent troubles), and there are a whole
bunch of fairly large tech companies that aren't well known but do a whole lot
of revenue...
[http://www.branham300.com/index.php?year=2011&listing=1](http://www.branham300.com/index.php?year=2011&listing=1)

The measure of economic benefit isn't just the creation of big firms, but also
the amount of people employed, money put back into the economy, etc...

It is true that our investment community is far more conservative, but then
again, we weathered the 'recession' better than most, and have one of the
healthiest banking sectors in the world...

------
Patrick_Devine
This kind of collective hand wringing always gives me a chuckle. I'm from
Vancouver and moved down to the valley in 1998. My rationale:

    
    
      - Vancouver has a high cost of living without commensurate salaries (and often no equity).
      - Because of the wealth of technology companies, it's easy to find a job here.
      - The weather (at least in the valley) is far better than sitting in the rain (Vancouver), or snow (rest of the country).
      - Quasi-reasonable immigration policy (TN-1 visas are easy to get, although have weird drawbacks)
      - A common language, and a fairly similar culture.
      - Proximity to home (it's only a 2 1/4 hour flight back to Vancouver with no time change -- can someone start flying out of SJC instead of only SFO?).
    

The start-up culture really fuels the tech industry here. Since moving in '98,
I've been through two IPOs where both companies ended up having billion+
dollar valuations. I think the reason why it's so successful is because of
reasons I (and others) have already mentioned, but also because of:

    
    
      - decent universities
      - former military/government technology jobs
      - easy access to capital
    

and probably most importantly, past success. The Bay Area has this unique
ecosystem where companies have been bootstrapped from nothing except an idea,
and that gives other people confidence to try their own hand at a startup.
This feedback loop is what keeps the valley humming.

After having been so successful being an employee at two startups that did
well, I started my own company a couple of weeks ago. It's absolutely amazing
the amount of support you get here, and the network of people who you can tap
to ask questions and help out in your venture.

Vancouver and Toronto both have parts of the equation, but they don't have the
whole package. And neither of them have the kind of past success which breeds
future success.

~~~
z2600
Can't speak to the VC angle.

I think a lot of the Bay Area power comes from having so many tech folks in
one place, which is hard for Canada to manage anywhere given population. In
the Bay Area, you can go for a coffee or a beer and run into a bunch of tech
folks and something may come out of that. There's no where in Canada where
tech has the density to make that happen in a random way (maybe Ottawa or
Waterloo back in the day).

Immigration can help, for sure bringing smart minds in is never a bad thing.
I've only lived in Ottawa and Toronto, I think creating the critical mass of
tech folks is difficult in those cities which have other more dominant
industries (government and financial/cpg respectively).

Agree that past success fuels the mentality that builds the future.

------
skylan_q
I've spoken with several start-up founders in Canada who have looked for
investment. Many have moved to the US because they find that most investors
here are only going to invest in something already making money. They are
scared of market potential and helping to cultivate start-ups. It's a cultural
thing and it won't change because we aren't American.

~~~
liquimoon
So, my startup is actually ramen profitable at the moment. I spoke with some
local investors. The deal was to owe 30% equity in exchange for 10 enterprise
clients (around $100/month)! Guess what, these are investors coming out of
mining industry... Unfortunately, they don't care about the company, they care
about their piece of the pie.

It's a pity.

~~~
jmacd
Why are you even talking to mining investors about your tech startup? I've
never heard of a tech entrepreneur in Canada taking that angle before.
Everyone else talks to tech focused investors. Have you tried that? Happy to
help....

~~~
liquimoon
Actually, I was not even raising money. I just had coffee with one of them
without knowing they were investors. I haven't talked to any investors other
than that. Just been focusing on building the startup. I will take on your
offer for later though. My email is jerry-at-contentdj-dot-com. What's a good
way to reach you?

------
foobarqux
If you eliminate mining, energy and banking Canada has essentially no
internationally relevant big companies whatsoever. RIM and Bombardier are the
only ones I see on the TSX 60 and the former is in its death throes. The
future looks grim for Canadians.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P/TSX_60](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P/TSX_60)

~~~
robotresearcher
Why discount those industries? If you eliminate legs and arms, I have
essentially no limbs. But I get by...

~~~
mattzito
I can't speak for OP, but I suggest that they're highlighting the fact that
instead of a broad base of large companies in a variety of industries,
Canada's big company wealth is highlighted in a narrow set of verticals.

This means that corporate investment might be more slanted towards that areas,
and it also means a narrower set of potential customers for a given
application.

~~~
robotresearcher
I know what you mean, and I'm sure that's what the OP intended, but these
"verticals" are energy, minerals and money. Literally everyone needs these
things, which is the definition of a horizontal market.

Anyway, as a Canadian computer scientist I'd be very happy to see knowledge
industry grow here.

------
pseut
This article is way off from what I thought was the consensus; there were a
shit ton of grant dollars going into CA universities from the US govt, and
silicon valley is where it is because Stanford (I'm simplifying a lot and
ignoring other details, but to a first approximation I thought that was the
consensus view).

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but the article's not convincing me.
e.g. quotes like this, _" Do you think Google will be a billion dollar company
had they license the technology to Yahoo?"_ Yes, since they did. They also
would have sold to Yahoo IIRC but Yahoo didn't want to pay enough (cite:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/googles.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/googles.html)).

~~~
potatolicious
I don't think that's the whole consensus, though it's certainly part of it.

Silicon Valley's success is commonly attributed to being within proximity of
two major schools (Stanford and Berkeley) fueling the talent funnel. But that
is far from a sufficient explanation.

Massive government investment in R&D helped birth the first semiconductor and
aerospace companies that helped create the first critical-mass concentration
of tech industry and talent.

And those were just the baby steps. The current behemoth of the Silicon Valley
machinery is sustained in large part by the enormous amount of investment, as
well as ease of access to said investment. Modern startups go to/stay in the
Bay Area largely for funding reasons.

> _" They also would have sold to Yahoo IIRC but Yahoo didn't want to pay
> enough"_

And therein lies the difference between Canadian tech and Silicon Valley tech.
In Silicon Valley Google had enough funding to keep going and reject Yahoo's
offer, and thereby growing by leaps and bounds into the giant company we see
today.

If they were in Canada, they would almost certainly not have had the funding,
and be pressured into an early sale for less, and Google today would probably
be a sub-brand of some stodgy old behemoth of an enterprise-tech company.

Funding is, IMO, Canada's biggest problem. I've worked in the Toronto side of
the software industry, and still know some people on that side. Canadian tech
is dominated by either very large enterprise software firms, or slow-and-
steady small businesses. There is no readily available investment source to
perform the type of "grow fast, shoot for the moon" type of startups that the
USA is known for (see: AirBnb, Square, etc, companies that took enormous
amounts of funding very quickly and scaled just as quickly).

A startup in Canada means going for profitability very quickly, and being
doomed to a slow-growth strategy, as large chunks of cash are nowhere to be
found.

On a more sombre/cynical note: as a Canadian expat in the US tech industry, I
basically have given up hope on Canadian tech. The first step is for the
industry, government, and everyone to acknowledge that Canadian tech is
fundamentally dysfunctional. And I just don't see this happening. Every
opening of another satellite office that exploits the large salary gap is
greeted with pomp and circumstance and speeches about how Canada's being
recognized for its unique technological prowess.

Gag me with a spoon.

~~~
rdouble
_Every opening of another satellite office that exploits the large salary
gap..._

I was under the impression that the satellite offices aren't just to exploit
the wage gap, it's also to set up a pipeline to get more foreign engineers to
the SV based motherships through the TN-1 visa.

~~~
potatolicious
This is true. Some are there are glorified waiting rooms. Others are "legit"
an employ actual Canadians - the latter type tend to pay dramatically less
than their American counterparts, and exist largely to "insourcing" tasks to a
cheaper locale.

I worked for one of them, was not fun. Everything we did was basically
something management didn't want to pay a $120K Californian to do. Without the
giant salary gap these satellite offices simply would stop existing.

------
trustfundbaby
I think something that a lot of people overlook in the rush to create the next
silicon valley is the role the cities in/around these potential tech hubs play
in their rise to prominence.

B2C tech startups cannot takeoff in places that don't have really high
densities of people because places like that wind up having the people with
the mentality to use technology to get ahead/make their lives simpler. Because
of the high demand for access to pretty much everything in these kinds of
cities, people there will be more likely to try new things to get an edge. Is
it an accident that the big consumer startups tend to come from SF, NY, and
Boston?

This doesn't seem to be a big deal, but as an example you can probably see how
it helped foursquare(SF) pull ahead of Gowalla (Austin) in the location app
shootout of a few years ago. Its the reason why Austin will probably not
become a real startup powerhouse for another couple of years (as more and more
people stream in here).

B2B is a little easier because businesses have more uniform needs that aren't
usually dependent on city characteristics. But then again, a place with a
higher concentration of businesses per capita will usually have that edge.

I think this is why you see smaller cities having startups that are more
successful at B2B (Austin for example) but not so much in the B2C scene ... in
fact the exact thing that the writer mentions in his article happens here
where startups get bought out by their competition in Silicon Valley or other
places.

I guess the point I'm making is for Canada to get a successful tech startup
scene going, concentrate on high density cities (Toronto?) otherwise see what
edge you can give companies that do B2B startups.

~~~
jvm
> B2C tech startups cannot takeoff in places that don't have really high
> densities of people because places like that wind up having the people with
> the mentality to use technology to get ahead/make their lives simpler.

One reason I find this unconvincing is that Toronto specifically has very
similar size and density characteristics to the Bay Area. Toronto's metro area
has a comparable population [1][2]; and before it was amalgamated with its
suburbs, the city itself also had a very similar population and population
density to San Francisco [3][4]. Toronto is also home to U Toronto which has
one of the world's top CompSci departments. I suspect there is some sort of
policy problem at work here rather than a lack of density, possibly as banal
as drawing from a smaller talent pool.

[1] Toronto/Hamilton/Niagra area: 8.7 million
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_horseshoe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_horseshoe)

[2] Combined San Jose/SF metro: 8.37 miilion
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose-San_Francisco-
Oakland,...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose-San_Francisco-
Oakland,_CA_Combined_Statistical_Area)

[3] Old Toronto: Population 736k, density 19,600/mi^2
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Toronto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Toronto)

[4] San Francisco: Population 812k, density 17,620/mi^2
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_francisco](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_francisco)

~~~
potatolicious
> _" I suspect there is some sort of policy problem at work here rather than a
> lack of density, possibly as banal as drawing from a smaller talent pool."_

I'm a Canadian who grew up, went to school in Canada, and am now in the US.
The problem is _very_ simple and can be summed as such:

A skilled software developer can make double to triple their salary _easily_
by moving to the USA. And Canada and the Us have a legally porous border when
it comes to exchanging workers.

 _Double to triple_. I shit you not.

This is a _huge_ part of what holds Canadian tech back. What kind of talent
pool are you looking at when the US pays so much more, and there are
relatively few legal barriers to taking these opportunities?

~~~
jvm
My girlfriend is Canadian but this is exactly what prevents us from moving
there, I love Canada as a country.

But something's missing from this equation.

If wages are low in Canada because there is a glut of workers relative to the
number of jobs, then why doesn't the sector expand to take advantage of the
low wages?

Contrarily, if the sector is small because high wages attract workers to the
states, why can't Canadian companies pay as much as the American companies?
There's nothing magical about America that allows its startups and companies
to pay so much; Canada isn't particularly poor itself and its companies don't
even have to pay for workers' health care.

Either way, there has to be a deeper reason.

~~~
sounds
Wage rates are less elastic than simple supply/demand until you get to
macroeconomic scale.

I'm obviously not an expert on Canada, so I'll try to illustrate one way it
might work, but please feel free to shoot this full of holes...

Say companies in Canada start by paying their employees half of a competitive
wage. Not all employees will notice. The ones who are willing to move
thousands of miles will eventually disappear but there will always be new
hires, right? Thus the management gets away with low wages.

I _have_ seen this exact scenario play out in several locations in the US, but
not Canada.

In this scenario, the company slowly accumulates B and C players who drag down
the company's reputation: death by a thousand paper cuts. The company doesn't
_die_ outright, but everyone just thinks, "Oh, not a Silicon Valley level
company."

At that point the company will never make enough money and can't even dream of
raising wages.

Only at that large scale (companies competing for talent and then trying to
turn their talent into revenue) do you start to see the effects of their
salary range.

~~~
liquimoon
\- In this scenario, the company slowly accumulates B and C players who drag
down the company's reputation: death by a thousand paper cuts. The company
doesn't _die_ outright, but everyone just thinks, "Oh, not a Silicon Valley
level company."

Interestingly, you just described what happened to RIM.

------
quinndupont
This is complete bullshit. The logic is: create entrepreneur culture to create
huge companies. This is not how huge companies arise, rather a healthy small
business culture is created. As it turns out, tech in Canada at this scale is
vibrant. A single example: the number of mobile development companies in
Toronto is staggering (a huge number of iOS apps are developed in Toronto).

~~~
TheLegace
I'll have to admit that is exactly how my family thrived. Parents with little
to no education, survive by creating a small business when no one would give
them a job.

------
vinceguidry
I don't live there, so maybe I'm missing something, but is Silicon Valley
really something to glamorize and try to replicate? I always thought that
technology is supposed to be distributed rather than centralized. Centralizing
something allows you to exploit economies of scale, but also invites parasites
in to free-ride. And the Valley does seem to attract a lot of parasites.

~~~
jister
>> I don't live there, so maybe I'm missing something, but is Silicon Valley
really something to glamorize and try to replicate?

Nope not really but you're in HN and most people here tend to think that
Silicon Valley is like Mt. Olympus or something. There are a lot of startups
out there that are very successful and not in Silicon Valley.

~~~
liquimoon
But the concentration is what counts here. After all, Silicon Valley is merely
a region. You cannot compare it to the rest of the world.

------
elchief
Here's an industry analysis I did on Vancouver a while back:

[http://vancouverdata.blogspot.ca/2010/09/what-is-work-of-
dog...](http://vancouverdata.blogspot.ca/2010/09/what-is-work-of-dogs-in-this-
city.html)

In Vancouver we have MDA, which makes satellites, PMC Sierra, PlentyOfFish,
HootSuite, PhoneGap. Not huge, but substantial. Oh, and a dark horse named
D-Wave.

And we had Creo and Flickr.

We don't have much of a military presence to help with R&D funding, hence
Ottawa's slightly bigger scene. They almost got rid of the only army base on
the West Coast a few years ago in fact.

There was an article on here a while back about what made a good startup city.
We _do_ have some old wealth (mining cos), some great universities, and nice
weather by Canadian standards.

Also doesn't help that we're a 2 hr flight from San Fran!

------
jmspring
If the right pieces fell into place, despite being a Bay Area native, I would
consider Vancouver if I were starting a company. It would have to be one that
didn't depend on bay area connections (VCs, etc). I've spent a lot of time in
Vancouver, and yes, it has tech companies but for some reason has never become
a technology hub. However, the blend of urban and amazing outdoors (yes, it
rains, and I recall a July trying to get around during downpours and a bus
strike) make it a tempting place for me.

It has great connectivity, cultural diversity, easy access to both Seattle and
SF (a couple of hour drive/flight), a hub for asia, a great university in UBC.

There is a lot going on there that should make it more open to tech companies,
but it has always been more of media than a tech town.

~~~
liquimoon
\- There is a lot going on there that should make it more open to tech
companies, but it has always been more of media than a tech town.

It's slowly changing now. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Microsoft all have
their offices here.

~~~
jmspring
It has been a little while since I last checked, but the Amazon and MSFT
offices were more towards Richmond than Van proper, but still a good sign.

Though some of those offices were, from what I recall, a method to get around
issues in dealing with US work visa issues for foreign talent...

------
jeffblake
Yeah I'm an American who went to school here in Vancouver, started a company,
doing well, but probably moving myself and the company back to the States soon
as it's very difficult to get a VISA. The new startup VISA only applies to
companies that are fundraising.

~~~
robotresearcher
Just in case this is useful to you one day: A travel visa is a normal,
uncapitalized noun "visa". The capital "VISA" is a trademark of the credit
card company. Neither is an acronym.

~~~
otterley
Trivia: VISA is in fact a recursive acronym, much like GNU: Visa International
Service Associaton.

~~~
foobarbazqux
Actually a recursive backronym, according to Wikipedia, but unfortunately
{{citation needed}}.

------
grishas
I've worked in Vancouver at a startup, and to me it seems that the goals of a
Canadian startup are just more conservative. No one ever expected to become a
Facebook, or a Google or even Nortel or RIM for that matter. The philosophy
has been mostly to create a profitable company, in the more traditional
sense-- consistent revenue that can employ people. No one is looking for giant
cash injections from VCs, nor are we throwing lavish parties and giving away
Porsches at company picnics ( _cough_ Trilogy _cough_ ). We aim smaller than
'murica so of course we don't have any mega tech companies. And we're happy
for it, at least I know I am.

~~~
liquimoon
Thanks for sharing.

The philosophy has been mostly to create a profitable company, in the more
traditional sense-- consistent revenue that can employ people. \- I share with
this philosophy exactly.

The thing I am pointing out is that because of the VC gap, startups are
dealing with the lack of cash infusion to really hit a homerun. As a result,
Canadian tech companies stall after growing to a certain size. The options
were taking VC money with bad terms or getting bought by US companies.

US companies are buying profitable Canadian businesses at a bargain price,
reaping all the benefits of job creation and ambitious business goals.

------
zinssmeister
Why Canada Has No Big ____ Companies would be a more interesting
article/video. The biggest Canadian company seems to have an annual revenue of
"just" 50 billion. On the list of largest Companies, Canada is not even
present:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue)
I am not trying to bash Canada, but compared to others in the global arena,
Canada isn't really known to be a player with large corporations.

~~~
gyardley
I assume you meant billion, not million.

~~~
zinssmeister
Ah yes. Corrected!

------
jmacd
Not even 10 years ago this same kind of post could have been written except
the complaint back then wasn't that investors were boneheaded but that "Canada
is full of entrepreneurs who don't think big enough and aren't aggressive
enough!"

That narrative is, mostly, dead. Thankfully.

Now the entrepreneurs in this country have left the bad investors in their
dust and the angel and VC community is playing catchup.

The author's point has some merit but it is hardly "the reason" we have so few
billion $ companies.

The point worth making is: we are making progress. If we take the time to
quantify it I'd guess that the ecosystem here is evolving more quickly than
almost anywhere else in the world.

The other point being missed entirely is that there is no barrier for US
investors to invest in Canada. Many (tempted to say most but I'm not sure)
tech/web seed and A rounds in Canada now have some level of US (read: valley)
participation. There are no legal or economic barriers to cross border
investing anymore. The idea of a "Canadian investor" is becoming completely
moot.

------
bittired
> Not enough people have the gut and commitment to create or help create
> something truly meaningful.

That's not the whole story by any means. No matter where you are the problems
are almost always money and time. In this case, how much will it cost to lure
people to Canada, which is not know for big tech? Google didn't happen
overnight, but now that it exists, any new tech company is competing with
Google in a way for top talent, if that is what they are after. So, not only
would Canada need to grow a Google, they'd have to compete with Google. That
is difficult. Throw a less friendly business climate than the U.S. into the
mix, and that is just more money and time that would be required.

All of that said, sure Canada is spoiled and lazy, but that's no different
than the U.S. We expect too much.

------
pierlux
There are potential big players but American companies come and buy them out
when they get competitive size: Softimage, Discreet, Maya, ATI, Matrox _, ...

_ Matrox didn't get acquired but kinda changed their target markets.

------
wluu
Just swap out Canada for Australia and you get a similar story.

While there are a few smaller tech companies here and there, the only larger
home-grown one I can name at the moment is Atlassian (owners of BitBucket, Hip
Chat etc). And they have international offices now I believe.

I remember reading a few years back, local startups were either moving to, or
establishing a presence in the US to try to secure VC funding.

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peter303
I was wondering closer to home why Harvard and Stanford skate circles around
my alma mater MIT when it comes to billionaire dollar tech IPOs. Having
attended all the three, the tech culture is deepest at MIT. The business
culture is deepest at Stanford.

This may change as MITs Drew Houstons Drop Box is monetized.

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philipkimmey
While Silicon Valley is no doubt a unique place, it's odd to follow the quote:

"We don’t have billion dollar Internet companies with the likes of Microsoft,
Google, Facebook, and Amazon."

With a discussion only of Silicon Valley, given 2 of 4 are based in Seattle.

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mpg33
I'm becoming more and more convince that this is a cultural thing and less
about laws/taxes. Entrepreneurship requires risk-taking which (we) Canadians
are less likely to do than our American cousins.

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anuraj
Canada had Nortel and RIM - both were pretty big in their heydays

~~~
corresation
And ATI, and Matrox, Alias Systems, OpenText, and QNX... These may not be
huge, but they did pretty well in their respective industries.

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neona
I saw this title hoping that the article was about how canada doesn't have any
big tech conglomerates, and that it's a good thing.

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miguelrochefort
What's the best way for a young entrepreneur from Montreal to live the startup
dream? Can I start a company in the US? Should I start my company here and
move to the US? How does that work?

I don't have any measurable "unique skill", nor do I have millions to invest.
Is there any way for me to move to SV and get proper funding?

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Maven911
Theres opentext in Canada...

~~~
ja27
Yep and their market cap is almost as big as their neighbor, RIM.

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ktavera
Research In Motion is a pretty big tech company... Just saying.

~~~
tensor
Nortel was also huge, though screwed up big time.

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surferbayarea
canada has serious issues. I wanted to go for a conference there + meet a few
startups. Turns out you need 2 months to get a tourist/business visa!

~~~
jmspring
I find it hard to believe you couldn't attend a conference and visit a couple
of startups on a normal entry from the US, unless you are not a US citizen?

I've been to Vancouver many times as a tourist, a few times for conferences /
standards meetings, no problem, no visa required.

This doesn't sound right.

~~~
rogerbinns
A visa is required for business visits, unless all you are doing is
"meetings". However they'll usually sell you one at the airport.

~~~
snogglethorpe
So of course, everything becomes a "meeting"... ><

~~~
rogerbinns
You get grilled at immigration. Of course the second time through you know the
exact terminology to use!

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shirro
s/Canada/Australia/

