| I try to be charitable when I critique an article, so Alex please don't take this comment as a personal attack. I appreciate your writing of this article and your efforts to improve Canada. There are some truths in your article and an interesting perspective on the cascading feedback loops, which I think has merit, but there are some factual errors here that I think should be addressed. > The problem with SR&ED credits, honestly through no fault of their own, is that you have to say what you’re doing with them. That's not true. The SR&ED program is retrospective. It's an earned grant. If your company does real scientific or technological research you get a portion of the salaries and overhead back after you already did the research. And a small portion of consultant or contractor fees as well. It's true that you can have your project span multiple years, but at the end of each year a new report is written with the chief technical and scientific uncertainties that were encountered and how they were addressed. I've written multiple, funded claims for my own business and for others with Paul Vice from GetGrants in Toronto. None of my claims to date have been rejected or failed to survive an audit. It pays to have professional help with these so you don't waste time doing unnecessary, distracting work. They can be assembled by the natural exhaust of real research, like Git commit logs or project plans. > To be clear: I am not saying there are no individual success stories of Canadian startups, or that there are no good angel investors or VCs here, or that there are no individual instances of things going right. Well, you kinda are though. Most American companies don't raise rounds in 72 hours. Even ones that go through YC sometimes fail to raise for months. It's true that it's slower here, but there are some good angels like Andrew Peek or David Crow, both of whom have invested in a company of mine. One private angel invested $50k in less than a day of thinking about it. Also, on the topic of individual success stories: We have RIM, Shopify, and plenty of successful financial services startups. We're one tenth the size of America, we're not going to be unleashing Facebooks or Googles every couple years. > Including salaries, which is helpful if you’re staffing entry level positions but a huge problem when you’re trying to recruit experienced managers & senior talent. I completely agree. But there is a reason why salaries are lower here in Canada. Most of our workers don't work as hard and they don't have to worry about healthcare costs. There is less of a culture of brashness here and, subsequently, our startup scene looks different. We make less, true, but we see our families more. I'd rather have it this way, and if you're really good smart companies pay out big anyway. Anyway, thanks for writing the article I hope you take these comments well. |
I appreciate that you wrote such an otherwise thoughtful post. But as a founder, I think this may be a blind spot for you.
Most SV tech employees also don't have to worry about healthcare costs in any meaningful way. At every company I've worked at in the Bay Area, I've only done more than the standard 40 hours/week when I was chasing a big promotion. Or doing something I was especially excited about. And I've done OK in my career so far - I'm quite satisfied.
Whereas the salaries at most startup-y tech companies are laughable in Toronto or Vancouver compared to the housing costs (one Vancouver company seriously quoted me CAD 80k for a frontend role slinging React code 2 years ago).
The big companies in the Bay Area pay 3x the average Toronto startup. I promise you they aren't working 120 hour weeks, and I'm sure your employees aren't working 13 hour weeks.