Even though the exchange has become the TSX Venture exchange, Vancouver remains the centre for junior mining companies, of the sort where scams are common.
I used to work in Downtown Vancouver and would on occasion get my haircut at a downtown barber frequented by office workers all around, and those barbers were a wealth of knowledge about the latest gossip from shifty junior miners and whatever they were into, which was increasingly not mining, but trendy startups.
Funny thing was when I was working in the area mining was going through a bit of a downturn, so a lot of the junior miners were shifting into other hot things they could fundraise for, like cannabis and crypto. From scam to scam to scam.
I stopped working downtown so stopped getting the gossip but I presume they swiftly pivoted to NFTs and onto whatever flakey thing they could still dubiously attach a .ai domain to.
I just happened to be going through every stock in the TSX from smallest market cap to largest. Many of the stocks at the bottom were mining companies that started with some huge spike then faded into nothing for the next N years until the current state of what seems to be basically dead.
I assume you’re referring to crypto mining, but the mental image of handlebar-mustachioed ore miners gossiping in Vancouver barber shops about how to scam investors with their shaft-digging operations is quite hilarious to think about! Pickaxes must be left at the door after the Incident.
Energy (oil & gas) and Resources (mining) have some serious scams, minor coup d'états, and no shortage of the not so funny.
Common low level scams such as falsifying assay results from ground and bore hole samples are just the beginning.
More questionable scams tap dance about questions of who really owns or controls resources, who can be paid off, and how to bury money spent greasing wheels by various means.
But ultimately the transferable skills are pitch making, selling to investors, pumping and dumping.
That applies not just to some plot of land in some obscure place that has some "enormously promising" signs of valuable minerals, but also some new crytocurrency, NFTs, cannabis, VR and all sorts novel things. AI is the latest thing but it won't be the last.
When mining is hot they'll focus on mining, but when it's not they'll be looking to see how they can use their skills on other places.
(Not to say that any of these things are necessarily scams per se, I personally think there's lots of interesting things going on with AI, but this is the ocean that these guys swim in, and there'll be lots of money attaching some flimsy nothing idea to the latest hot trend)
that's pretty accurate ;) I used to live in Vancouver too and ... some of that culture's like that. Most is good 'ol "people in suits" though.
A long time ago, Vancouver was a center of gold mining scamming too. "Gassy Jack" downtown was one of the major scammers near the founding of the city.
... Visit first. When I left (2018-ish) Vancouver was one of the most expensive cities on the planet. (put it this way : the only places more expensive were in China ...). It's a beautiful city, close (ish) to skiing - especially Whistler (2 hours drive, or various other transportation methods) but there are a lot of closer ski sites too. Warmer and wetter than Seattle (slightly) due to being surrounded by mountains. I have to admit I miss Vancouver badly.
Toronto's a much better "hub" for tech work. (I work remotely out of Winnipeg now, and am liking that too).
Mind, Vancouver does have a lot of tech, and if you want to work more with tech world that speaks other world languages, Vancouver is very good, too. Or music, or film, or really media of any kind. Also better diversity and cheaper food than almost anywhere I've visited.
Just not - unless you really figure out where and how to look, or if you have good connections - a particularly affordable city, at least as far as rent goes. Everything else though is good.
Thanks for a great answer.
I did visit Vancouver last year. Just arriving at the airpoirt with its lush green-blue colour scheme and a small river running through the hallways towards entering the country where the two tall totem poles wish all visitors a warm welcome. It felt like coming home.
In Vancouver we rented a car and visited almost all suburbs. For me the absolute dream would be Vancouver West, Vancouver North followed closely by Kitsilano. North and West seemed like a Twin Peaks dream all surrounded by the woods and mountains. I fell in love.
Downtown was in our view, beautiful but broken by (1) homeless roaming, (2) homeless with psychiatric issues making a scene and (3) opiate drug users aka junkies. It is not somewhere I want my kids to roam. This was terrible, but we are willing to overlook it.
We also went to Toronto. World class city. But we stayed in Vaughn and had to endure 1 hour commute in traffic each direction. Being stuck in traffic is not an appealing lifestyle.
Toronto felt like an awesome world class metropolis city with more opportunities probably than Vancouver. Anecdotally the standup shows were better (actually most hilarious of all) in Toronto than Vancouver too :)
My first thought was ore mining before crypto mining. I think I've recovered from the days of crypto induced mania where every other article on Hackernews was cryptocurrency related.
It's worth mentioning that the 'culture' you describe is also something that significantly aided and abetted various real estate scams and bubble related activity. Vancouver has all sort of shady shit going on in real estate.
I used to work in Downtown Vancouver and would on occasion get my haircut at a downtown barber frequented by office workers all around, and those barbers were a wealth of knowledge about the latest gossip from shifty junior miners and whatever they were into, which was increasingly not mining, but trendy startups.
Funny thing was when I was working in the area mining was going through a bit of a downturn, so a lot of the junior miners were shifting into other hot things they could fundraise for, like cannabis and crypto. From scam to scam to scam.
I stopped working downtown so stopped getting the gossip but I presume they swiftly pivoted to NFTs and onto whatever flakey thing they could still dubiously attach a .ai domain to.