Lack of ambition in Canada creating ‘600-pound beaver in the room’: Shopify president

TORONTO — The president of e-commerce giant Shopify Inc. is calling on Canada to address a problem he calls “the 600-pound beaver in the room.”

That problem is a lack of ambition that Harley Finkelstein described as hampering the growth and long-term success of Canadian companies, the country’s tech ecosystem and its broader economy.

“This idea of injecting more ambition into the Canadian psyche, of not going for bronze but going for gold, of owning the podium … is unequivocally necessary,” he said late Tuesday during an interview hosted by astronaut Chris Hadfield at the Elevate tech conference in Toronto.

While they first delved into Finkelstein’s previous DJ career, why he starts his day with meditation and Shopify’s views on remote work (great as long as staff still gather regularly), the pair eventually got down to business, discussing the state of Canadian tech.

The conversation saw Finkelstein compare startups in Canada, where he lives and runs Shopify, with their rivals in the U.S., where he went to school.

The difference between the two, he pointed out, is that the lack of ambition in Canada has left the country’s startups with a reputation for being acquired, often by their U.S. counterparts which are known for swallowing up buzzy businesses.

“I want more Canadian companies to be headquartered here,” Finkelstein said. “I don’t want to be a country of branch offices.”

When Hadfield asked Finkelstein what advice he would give the prime minister to address the problem, the tech executive’s advice was simple: ask those in the sector how he can help.

Such conversations Finkelstein has already had with others in the industry have turned up people who want policy changes around shipping goods and others who need access to more electricity to power their manufacturing operations.

“But in some cases, it may just be about getting out of the way,” Finkelstein said.

His remarks capped off opening night for Elevate, which will run through Thursday and is expected to draw some of the industry’s biggest names to Toronto to talk rapid advances in artificial intelligence, the country’s push toward open banking and how to handle the cybersecurity threats of tomorrow.

Ahead of Finkelstein’s talk, Olympians Phil Wizard and Rosie MacLennan, “Dragons’ Den” star Arlene Dickinson and executives from TD Bank and Mastercard took the stage.

The hot topic among speakers was the state of Canadian tech, with the head of one of Canada’s more prominent venture capital funds using his appearance to lament the country’s lack of willingness to take risks.

Jordan Jacobs, co-founder and managing partner of Radical Ventures, said he notices that cautious behaviour crops up when local companies are seeking funding or looking for people to adopt their technology.

“There’s a Canadian hesitance to go first, which makes sense … because traditionally you want to be a second mover and let someone else make a mistake,” he said.

But when it comes to AI, Jacobs argued being second can be a detriment because there is a compounding factor, where the technology speedily improves and becomes more personalized based on the users.

“If you’re a second mover, you’re not just 90 days behind the person who went 90 days before,” he said. “So we need organizations, I think, that are good at taking some risks.”

Jacobs’ point of view was cemented during his decades leading tech companies like Layer 6, which develops machine learning systems. It was purchased by TD Bank, reportedly for $100 million, in 2018.

He co-founded Radical Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on AI and other “deeply disruptive” tech, in 2017. Its portfolio includes Toronto AI darling Cohere, self-driving vehicle company Waabi, chip firm Untether AI and health AI startup Signal1, whose co-founder joined Jacobs onstage.

The two speakers called on Canada to get more comfortable with risk-taking.

In building Signal1, Mara Lederman said she’s seen the pitfalls of Canada being too conservative, particularly at hospitals.

“We have patients in the emergency department getting care in hallways, their privacy is being breached every day when that happens,” she said.

“We have to shift our attitude a little bit that there are real risks to not innovating across sectors and across our economy, and I think that will help change the conversation a little bit.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press