You're second point is pretty much the reason why I ended up joining a startup in Canada. I got job offers from Facebook and Google for twice the pay, but I couldn't get a tn visa. According to the Canadian government I am not qualified to work there since I dropped out of College.
But yeah if it weren't for that there wouldn't have been much incentive to stick around.
Re:Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada
by msbarnett on Thursday September 06, 2012 @06:22PM
(#4486597)
> According to the Canadian government I am not qualified to work there since I dropped out of College.
The US Government, you mean.
Absolutely anecdotal, but on the second point I found the US easier to deal with than Canada. Not because of the government, but because no Canadian companies (and definitely startups) were prepared to sponsor me.
Largely it was because they'd never done it before- US companies are very familiar with it. So, I left Canada and now live in the US.
* Portable, cheap healthcare. A lot of people in the US don't join a startup due to the health insurance issue. The healthcare you get from a startup is not even close to what a big company can offer you.
* You're like me (no CS degree) and the US government doesn't think you look like an engineer. This can be worked around, but for me, the issue dogged me at almost every turn.