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Comment by rogerkirkness | Hacker News Reader

It is surprising how people don't understand this and perceive that actual productivity happens, when in practice it's so uncommon to be unusual. The amount of people who work in "startups" but actually work for government funded accelerators, investment funds that only invest in Shopify, government jobs relating to startup R&D, as opposed to actual startups, is shocking.

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This seems to be the case across most countries in the world except the US and China. The lack of such funding means the lack of any serious startup scene.

If your paycheck is predicted on you not understanding it, why rock the boat? What are the alternatives? Attempt to make a go of a startup yourself with the astoundingly high failure rate? Go work for someone else? Playing pretend can be lucrative and comfortable, and life is hard and unfair; I fault no one for doing so.

(if you don't know at all, that's entirely different; situational awareness is invaluable)

  The amount of people who work in "startups" but actually work for government funded accelerators, investment funds that only invest in Shopify, government jobs relating to startup R&D, as opposed to actual startups, is shocking.

Yeah I don't think there's anyone left. It's tough to find certainly a Series A or later that isn't invested in by BDC, CDPQ, etc. They think they're helping but they're actually destroying the potential of the industry, everyone with a good idea just goes to the US.

Heard the startup sync is good in waterloo, how true is it ?

Not true, I live there. The accelerators are mostly occupied by big companies hoping to convince their team they work for a startup. The number of high quality startups is low and they mostly either raise from the US (what we did) or just relocate there permanently. There's more Waterloo grads working on high quality startups in each of Miami, Austin, SF and New Year than there are here.

Yup, i was there for some time, I remember there was a accelerator on King's street. But yes pretty much occupied by big companies.

I'm glad to see others say this. Canada is more or less a PR front for the tar sands.

That free college for enby First Nations students? The new Montreal REM? Don't ask how they're paid for.

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