Argh. I know this might be more salt in the wound for BC after my last couple of posts on this topic (which, incidentally, got picked up by Heath Row over at Fast Company), but I have to point to this information about Flickr.
Maybe I’m late to the party, but I only recently came to realize (via Niall) that the Flickr crew has moved en masse to the Bay Area. This is the problem I’m talking about – BC is bleeding talent. Here are some talented entrepreneurs that cut their teeth at home and abroad, built something up of value in Vancouver, and then moved on once they got bought. It’s not that I blame the Flickr team – they built a successful venture, and their buyer probably needed them down here – but it’s like the BC tech environment is made of helium. Succeed and leave. Rinse, lather, repeat.
What’s worse: I’m convinced most people in BC have never even heard of Flickr. Now, understandably, it’s a pretty niche product. But it’s got a pretty cult-like following, and when someone like Yahoo! buys a company that’s only about a year old for a rumored $30 million in a place the size of Vancouver, I’d expect people to sit up and take notice.
Sigh.
It was just my luck that I would start a new job at the same time as the entire company came together for its annual meeting. Wow. Wow. Wow. When you say the word three times quickly, it loses its meaning; so consider how blown away I must have been for the word to have retained its meaning over the week. These guys are serious. These guys have a plan. These guys are going to get *bleep* done.