Google Raids Threaten Canada's Lead in Artificial Intelligence
Disclaimer: I&#x27;m a Canadian expat who&#x27;s been living and working in the US tech industry for a few years.<p>&gt; <i>&quot;Google Raids Threaten Canada&#x27;s Lead in Artificial Intelligence&quot;</i><p>This seems like an unnecessary specific title, I&#x27;d suggest the following edit:<p>&quot;US Tech Company Compensation Threaten Canada&#x27;s Trailing Status in All of Tech&quot;<p>For one thing, this isn&#x27;t just an AI thing, US companies have been moving Canadian tech workers south of the border for years across the board, regardless of specialization or focus area. Everyone from the humblest code monkey to the brainiest algorithms wrangler is being exported from Canada at a rapid pace.<p>This has been happening for long enough that a significant fraction of Canadian tech talent is <i>already</i> residing in the US, which sort of raises eyebrows about any claims that Canada &quot;leads&quot; in tech currently. If there ever was a lead the brain drain has certainly put that to bed long ago.<p>And it&#x27;s not just Google, <i>all</i> of the major companies recruit Canadians heavily, and even startups have gotten in on the game in recent years.<p>And these aren&#x27;t &quot;raids&quot;. Google isn&#x27;t marching off computer scientists at gunpoint. There&#x27;s nothing predatory about this - if Canadian companies want to play in the same league as US tech, they need to catch up, the least of which is narrowing the pay gap.<p>Right now I am literally making 500% the salary a similar position pays in Canada. Even accounting for the living costs of SF&#x2F;SV&#x2F;NYC it&#x27;s not hard to see why people make the move. Canadian tech pays <i>incredibly</i> poorly in comparison to US tech, and that&#x27;s far and away the #1 reason the brain drain exists and will persist.<p>I&#x27;m a proud Canadian, and all else being equal I&#x27;d rather live in Canada than the US, but one of the persistently annoying things about Canada&#x27;s tech industry narrative is the continuous denial of just how far behind they are compared to the US.