Every so often a city plants its flag on the world stage:

• Edinburgh (1740 – 1820) Coffee-house chatter morphs into the Scottish Enlightenment; Adam Smith re-writes capitalism while David Hume and friends make “Athens of the North”.
• Singapore (1967 – 1984) Just two years after independence, Lee Kuan Yew’s crew swaps swamp for skyscrapers, luring multinationals and ballooning GDP ~15× in under two decades.
• Seattle (1983 – 1995) Windows 1.0 ships in ’85, Starbucks IPOs in ’92, and Boeing’s brain trust fuels a tech-aviation-coffee feedback loop that soon births Amazon (’94) and the “Silicon Forest.”

Vancouver’s turn is next.

While travelling, I contemplated moving to a different city, but let’s be honest - this place checks nearly every box: mountains before breakfast, beaches by lunch, an airport that takes you almost anywhere direct.

So why did leaving even cross my mind? Three friction points:

1. Founder-unfriendly taxes compared with the U.S.
2. Sky-high housing that scatters friends and talent across the lower mainland.
3. Too few scale-ups, which means too few high-paying jobs to pay for those houses.

This makes for a thinner community fabric. Which would only be a problem if it wasn’t fixable.

Here’s how: Vancouver’s Flag On The World Stage

We are known on the world-stage for being the place you go to build your clean or health tech, CPG, or activewear brand.

1. Our goal is twenty Vancouver-first $1-billion+ wins in the 2030s. Vancouver headquartered. Vancouver employed. Vancouver capital.
2. Proximity = power. Put founders in the same rooms, gyms, and whiteboards; let friendly rivalry do the heavy lifting.
3. Close the loop with capital, influencers, media, and professional services. Forget cold emails - trust is built over coffee, run clubs, and solved problems.
4. Talent pipeline. Make UBC and SFU the U of T - Queens - Waterloo - Western of the West Coast. The smartest and most ambitious students come to Vancouver to have a healthy lifestyle and a thriving career. Then let’s keep the talent here after they exit. Let the flywheel momentum build.
5. Policy allies. Work with policy makers to create better founder incentives, a better transit experience, focus more on walking and biking to commute.

None of this is altruism. I want Vancouver to be the best launchpad on the planet - where my companies thrive, peers are one coffee shop away, talent can afford a roof, and the North Shore slopes are waiting after work.