How the Canadian Tech Scene Encourages Finite Gameplay
As someone who has worked in the Canadian tech scene for 25 years, and rode two startups all the way to exit (i.e. acquisition by US companies), in my opinion the problem has nothing to do with exit mindset, good angels, bad angels or SRED.<p>It is all about talent retention.  Up until early 2000, Canadian tech salaries at least somewhat kept pace with US salaries, albeit 20-30% lower.<p>After the dot com crash, however, for some god-forsaken reason, the surviving tech companies decided that keeping salaries low was the new path to profitability.  Every year the HR departments in Vancouver and Toronto do a hush-hush survey among each other and fix their salaries to the exact same level - maybe 2% but usually closer to 1% higher than the previous year.<p>The result of 20 years of this is that Canadian tech salaries have fallen ridiculously behind those of US companies, resulting in a massive brain drain to the south.<p>Now that Amazon, Microsoft and Google are setting up shop right here in Canada, the talent drain away from Canadian companies is only accelerating.<p>I have no idea what it will take to make companies realize that long term success requires retention of top talent and that that in turn requires paying competitive salaries.