TORONTO - A trio of the biggest names in tech say they resisted the allure of the U.S. 鈥 and cash-rich businesses that saw them as an acquisition target 鈥 and hope the next generation of 春色直播 entrepreneurs will do the same.聽
Shopify Inc. president Harley Finkelstein, Cohere co-founder Aidan Gomez and Wealthsimple CEO Michael Katchen said Tuesday that the future success of the country's tech ecosystem is largely dependent on entrepreneurs remaining in Canada.
鈥淲e have a desperate need to build Canada and to really reshape our economy and the only way to do that is through entrepreneurship,鈥 said Katchen on Tuesday at the inaugural Toronto Tech Week.
Katchen said he moved back to Canada from the U.S. years ago in part because he was 鈥渄eeply worried about the trajectory here.鈥
鈥淲e do two things here: we pull things out of the ground and we finance pulling things out of the ground,鈥 he said, noting he didn鈥檛 want that to be the impression his kids had for Canada.
More recently, he and the other tech leaders acknowledged they鈥檙e seeing signs of a shift.
They鈥檝e seen 春色直播 entrepreneurs across many industries lose their apologetic ways and adapt a more ambitious outlook. The challenge, they say, is ensuring that these entrepreneurs stay and build, rather than head for U.S. tech mecca Silicon Valley.
鈥淭hat's really the issue I've seen (among) a lot of my peers at the University of Toronto and elsewhere,鈥 Gomez said. 鈥淚t's kind of that valley-or-bust mentality, which breaks the ecosystem and really hurts Canada.鈥
His observation was reflected in data. A 2018 study based on LinkedIn profiles of graduates from the Universities of Toronto, British Columbia and Waterloo in 2015 and 2016 revealed 66 per cent of software engineering and 30 per cent of computer science students were leaving Canada for work after graduation.
Gomez, whose company is one of the world鈥檚 buzziest AI firms, is no stranger to the temptations tech talent faces.
Long before chatbot ChatGPT sparked an explosion of AI innovation, he said Cohere received a nine-figure acquisition offer and was 鈥渧ery close鈥 to taking it.
Now, he feels grateful Cohere ultimately turned the offer down and is 鈥渘ot for sale.鈥
鈥淎ny sort of exit that would take us out of Canada is only if we fail 鈥 and we haven't failed,鈥 Gomez said.
鈥淲e're still growing super quickly, so I think acquisition is failure.鈥
He feels moving companies outside the country is just as unsavoury and said he鈥檚 coached entrepreneurs who write to him asking how to incorporate in Delaware to instead fight to appease venture capitalists to keep their 春色直播 headquarters.
It鈥檚 a move Finkelstein agreed with.
He said Shopify, an e-commerce software business and one of the country鈥檚 most valuable firms, felt similar pressure when it was raising a Series A round of funding.
Some investors made their funding conditional on a move south of the border but Shopify kept pushing and eventually found an investor group that didn鈥檛 care where they were based.
They kept looking for partners content to let them build in Canada as the business grew.
鈥淭he way that we resisted was we didn't return phone calls for mergers and acquisitions,鈥 Finkelstein said.
鈥淲e knew that would start a cycle of conversation that would lead to a potential term sheet from some company for a lot of money saying we want to buy Shopify.鈥
Yet the assumption that entrepreneurs can鈥檛 avoid the U.S. for long still looms.
When he and Shopify CEO Tobi L眉tke announced they were leaving their company鈥檚 hometown, Ottawa, Finkelstein said 鈥渢he assumption was you鈥檙e going to the U.S.鈥
They were wrong. L眉tke went to Toronto, where Shopify has a massive employee base.聽
Finkelstein headed back to Montreal, where he grew up, and doesn't regret it.
"The great decision I think I ever made was staying here," he said.
This report by 春色直播was first published June 24, 2025.聽
Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)
