Why Canada Has No Big Tech Companies

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.)<p>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.

I have to disagree with Terry&#x27;s sentiment.<p>It&#x27;s impudent to Vancouver&#x27;s culture--and more generally the world--to insinuate that we&#x27;re &quot;blindly [competing] to build the next Silicon Valley&quot;. We&#x27;re not. Canada&#x27;s not. Vancouver&#x27;s liberal lifestyle is innate, not superficial, not a failed attempt to clone Silicon Valley. And our immigration policy is definitely not to &quot;bring immigrant entrepreneurs together&quot;; it&#x27;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&#x27;s necessity that&#x27;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.<p>As for investors? I don&#x27;t know enough to comment.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.engineerscanada.ca/files/w_Engineering_Labour_Market_in_Canada_oct_2012.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.engineerscanada.ca&#x2F;files&#x2F;w_Engineering_Labour_Mar...</a> [2]: <a href="http://www.gamedevmap.com/index.php?query=Vancouver" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gamedevmap.com&#x2F;index.php?query=Vancouver</a><p>*: Immigration levels have been relatively low, recently

I&#x27;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&#x27;ve obsessed and tracked this topic. I&#x27;ve lived in many States in the US as well as Montreal in Candada.<p>I think reading Steve Blank&#x27;s Secret History of Silicon Valley gave me the best break through in understanding of why Silicon Valley is so dominant in tech. <a href="http://steveblank.com/secret-history/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;steveblank.com&#x2F;secret-history&#x2F;</a><p>There&#x27;s just been decades and decades and billions of even World War and Cold War money poured into into it&#x27;s infrastructure. The shear amount of money and momentum of peak US effort seems nearly impossible to catch up to.<p>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&#x27;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.

&gt;<i>Why Canada Has No Big Tech Companies</i><p>Here&#x27;s an explanation:<p>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?<p>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?

The fact that Canada doesn&#x27;t have a bunch of over-valued VC funded firms doesn&#x27;t mean we are unsuccessful in tech, or that we don&#x27;t have any big tech companies.<p>Not sure what definition of &#x27;big&#x27; 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&#x27;t well known but do a whole lot of revenue... <a href="http://www.branham300.com/index.php?year=2011&amp;listing=1" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.branham300.com&#x2F;index.php?year=2011&amp;listing=1</a><p>The measure of economic benefit isn&#x27;t just the creation of big firms, but also the amount of people employed, money put back into the economy, etc...<p>It is true that our investment community is far more conservative, but then again, we weathered the &#x27;recession&#x27; better than most, and have one of the healthiest banking sectors in the world...

This kind of collective hand wringing always gives me a chuckle. I&#x27;m from Vancouver and moved down to the valley in 1998. My rationale:<p><pre><code> - Vancouver has a high cost of living without commensurate salaries (and often no equity). - Because of the wealth of technology companies, it&#x27;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&#x27;s only a 2 1&#x2F;4 hour flight back to Vancouver with no time change -- can someone start flying out of SJC instead of only SFO?). </code></pre> The start-up culture really fuels the tech industry here. Since moving in &#x27;98, I&#x27;ve been through two IPOs where both companies ended up having billion+ dollar valuations. I think the reason why it&#x27;s so successful is because of reasons I (and others) have already mentioned, but also because of:<p><pre><code> - decent universities - former military&#x2F;government technology jobs - easy access to capital </code></pre> 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.<p>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&#x27;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.<p>Vancouver and Toronto both have parts of the equation, but they don&#x27;t have the whole package. And neither of them have the kind of past success which breeds future success.

I&#x27;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&#x27;s a cultural thing and it won&#x27;t change because we aren&#x27;t American.

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.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P/TSX_60" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;S%26P&#x2F;TSX_60</a>

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&#x27;m simplifying a lot and ignoring other details, but to a first approximation I thought that was the consensus view).<p>Someone please correct me if I&#x27;m wrong, but the article&#x27;s not convincing me. e.g. quotes like this, <i>&quot;Do you think Google will be a billion dollar company had they license the technology to Yahoo?&quot;</i> Yes, since they did. They also would have sold to Yahoo IIRC but Yahoo didn&#x27;t want to pay enough (cite: <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/googles.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;googles.html</a>).

I think something that a lot of people overlook in the rush to create the next silicon valley is the role the cities in&#x2F;around these potential tech hubs play in their rise to prominence.<p>B2C tech startups cannot takeoff in places that don&#x27;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&#x2F;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?<p>This doesn&#x27;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).<p>B2B is a little easier because businesses have more uniform needs that aren&#x27;t usually dependent on city characteristics. But then again, a place with a higher concentration of businesses per capita will usually have that edge.<p>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.<p>I guess the point I&#x27;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.

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).

I don&#x27;t live there, so maybe I&#x27;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.

Here&#x27;s an industry analysis I did on Vancouver a while back:<p><a href="http://vancouverdata.blogspot.ca/2010/09/what-is-work-of-dogs-in-this-city.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vancouverdata.blogspot.ca&#x2F;2010&#x2F;09&#x2F;what-is-work-of-dog...</a><p>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.<p>And we had Creo and Flickr.<p>We don&#x27;t have much of a military presence to help with R&amp;D funding, hence Ottawa&#x27;s slightly bigger scene. They almost got rid of the only army base on the West Coast a few years ago in fact.<p>There was an article on here a while back about what made a good startup city. We <i>do</i> have some old wealth (mining cos), some great universities, and nice weather by Canadian standards.<p>Also doesn&#x27;t help that we&#x27;re a 2 hr flight from San Fran!

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&#x27;t depend on bay area connections (VCs, etc). I&#x27;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.<p>It has great connectivity, cultural diversity, easy access to both Seattle and SF (a couple of hour drive&#x2F;flight), a hub for asia, a great university in UBC.<p>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.

Yeah I&#x27;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&#x27;s very difficult to get a VISA. The new startup VISA only applies to companies that are fundraising.

I&#x27;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 (<i>cough</i> Trilogy <i>cough</i>). We aim smaller than &#x27;murica so of course we don&#x27;t have any mega tech companies. And we&#x27;re happy for it, at least I know I am.

Why Canada Has No Big ____ Companies would be a more interesting article&#x2F;video. The biggest Canadian company seems to have an annual revenue of &quot;just&quot; 50 billion. On the list of largest Companies, Canada is not even present: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_largest_companies_by_re...</a> I am not trying to bash Canada, but compared to others in the global arena, Canada isn&#x27;t really known to be a player with large corporations.

Not even 10 years ago this same kind of post could have been written except the complaint back then wasn&#x27;t that investors were boneheaded but that &quot;Canada is full of entrepreneurs who don&#x27;t think big enough and aren&#x27;t aggressive enough!&quot;<p>That narrative is, mostly, dead. Thankfully.<p>Now the entrepreneurs in this country have left the bad investors in their dust and the angel and VC community is playing catchup.<p>The author&#x27;s point has some merit but it is hardly &quot;the reason&quot; we have so few billion $ companies.<p>The point worth making is: we are making progress. If we take the time to quantify it I&#x27;d guess that the ecosystem here is evolving more quickly than almost anywhere else in the world.<p>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&#x27;m not sure) tech&#x2F;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 &quot;Canadian investor&quot; is becoming completely moot.

&gt; Not enough people have the gut and commitment to create or help create something truly meaningful.<p>That&#x27;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&#x27;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&#x27;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.<p>All of that said, sure Canada is spoiled and lazy, but that&#x27;s no different than the U.S. We expect too much.

There are potential big players but American companies come and buy them out when they get competitive size: Softimage, Discreet, Maya, ATI, Matrox<i>, ...<p></i> Matrox didn&#x27;t get acquired but kinda changed their target markets.

Just swap out Canada for Australia and you get a similar story.<p>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.<p>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.

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

While Silicon Valley is no doubt a unique place, it&#x27;s odd to follow the quote:<p>&quot;We don’t have billion dollar Internet companies with the likes of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon.&quot;<p>With a discussion only of Silicon Valley, given 2 of 4 are based in Seattle.

I&#x27;m becoming more and more convince that this is a cultural thing and less about laws&#x2F;taxes. Entrepreneurship requires risk-taking which (we) Canadians are less likely to do than our American cousins.

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

I saw this title hoping that the article was about how canada doesn&#x27;t have any big tech conglomerates, and that it&#x27;s a good thing.

What&#x27;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?<p>I don&#x27;t have any measurable &quot;unique skill&quot;, nor do I have millions to invest. Is there any way for me to move to SV and get proper funding?

Theres opentext in Canada...

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

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&#x2F;business visa!

s&#x2F;Canada&#x2F;Australia&#x2F;