So Canada can only rely on immigrants for these jobs, many of which are immigrating to Canada as a stepping stone to the US anyway, and which Canada seems better about actually letting them naturalize.
What's interesting is we oppened a sattelite location in Toronto and it was a completely different experience. First thing people asked coming into interviews was about relocating to the US and if we could sponsor their visa. The demographics also skewed heavily toward recent immigrants to Canada.
The irony was, the Toronto location was opened specifically to house developers that simply couldn't pass the higher bar for US immigration.
From what I know shopify appears to be the exception to the rule and has grown to have a real international company in spite of being Canadian. So I belive Lütke is a credible voice in criticizing Canada's business culture.
1. They are not nice. They are timid. They can bitch behind your back.
2. Extreme fear of standing out. Extreme risk aversion. No startup pockets where investors are hanging out to invest a seed round in "just an idea".
3. No competition in the markets. Oligarchies rule the roost.
4. Low quality immigration from India gone crazy. If you are close to GTA, every single system will fail due to the massive amounts of low quality workers from India entering through fraudulent systems.
5. Everything is more expensive and lower quality than the US.
6. Healthcare is non existent unless you have a terminal disease. Nothing works.
So the vicious mix of low energy citizens with low quality immigrants makes Canada the most overrated country in the "developed world."
Business and employees here are universally perceived as suckers and ripe for fleecing which gives the country a poor reputation. The reality is that there are a lot of people here who are naive, but there are also many very skilled, experienced and capable people. Again culture clash.
Cost of living here is becoming almost impossible for the average person, with few places to go as most of the country does not have infrastructure to cope with those even there. There is a profound difference in politics and tolerance between cities and smaller town, so: yup, more culture clash.
While most of the world let inflation happen, Canada basically stalled inflation and placated citizens with cheap Chinese goods, and low interest rates. The result is that inflation is that Canadians are now priced out of their own country, inflation is accelerating and interest rates are creeping up.
In order to prop up profits and stave off economic collapse Canada brings in over 500,000 legal immigrants annually. The result is a massive strain on infrastructure which governments have been cost cutting for decades. Tensions are high and you can definitely see it in the moods and attitudes of people, especially on the roads.
Money parking and laundering are a huge problem here with little enforcement. Foreigners are buying property as fast as they can to aid in immigration applications and to hide their money from their own governments. The result is that property values have skyrocketed well beyond the reach of even tech sector workers.
Canada has some maturing to do and decisions to make like investing in the future rather than simply relying on population growth.
The word "nice" is not found anywhere in the article, which is good because it's inaccurate
