Moving North with Silicon Valley Talent
Terminal Tech Talk speaker Vikram Rangnekar is building a bridge from Silicon Valley to Canada.
From British Columbia to Montreal, the foundation has been set to support and nurture startups in Canada and entrepreneurs around the world are taking note. With H1B visa denials up across the board in the U.S., some of the best and brightest minds are heading north instead of west to Silicon Valley. Vikram Rangnekar is one of them.
Vikram is a leader, but he’s always known how to follow an opportunity. Looking to enjoy university life in the United States, he moved from India in 2001 to pursue his undergraduate studies where he excelled at the University of Delaware and majored in computer science. Graduating in 2005 meant entering a volatile and exciting time in tech. He joined the workforce three years after the dot-com bubble. YouTube had yet to be acquired by Google. Apple was still two years out from introducing the iPhone. And Airbnb was still just a pitch deck.
Vikram dreamed of moving to Palo Alto to experience the Valley and to work on his startup idea. Unfortunately, the U.S. had no visa designed to accommodate an entrepreneur equipped solely with ideas, so he was forced to seek out another country that could accommodate his vision. It turned out Singapore and its forward-thinking international startup scene was that place.
The small team Vikram assembled moved to Singapore to build Socialwok — an enterprise collaboration tool for users of Google apps. It was ahead of its time, way ahead. Think Slack before there was a Slack. Eventually, the development of Socialwok led Vikram to Silicon Valley where the product would win a Techcrunch50 award and gain the attention of engineering leads across the Valley.
Vikram soon found himself with a difficult decision to make: either accept a lucrative job offer from LinkedIn, or return to Singapore. Seduced by the lifestyle of Silicon Valley, Vikram chose to follow another opportunity and start a new chapter of his life in California. He followed another opportunity.
As promised, life at LinkedIn was rewarding. Vikram’s work made an impact, and under Jeff Weiner and Reid Hoffman’s leadership, the company became one of the fastest growing in the Valley. A life at the center of high-tech innovation and the dream of becoming a U.S. citizen seemed within reach. After all, 70% of STEM workers in Silicon Valley are foreign-born and many never leave the Valley. Vikram imagined this would be his path.
“The Valley is an amazing place. Who wouldn’t want to stay there? In the heart of beautiful California, it’s a little place for people in tech to call their own. But more than that, it’s the people that make the Valley what it is. It’s hard to find another place on this planet with such a high concentration of super smart, driven and friendly people.”
Over six years at LinkedIn, Vikram helped build a range of products from native ad serving infrastructure to products like sponsored status updates and sponsored InMail to working on the first UI refresh, which moved the massive site to a modern frontend stack called EmberJS.
LinkedIn grew from 37 to 400 million users during Vikram’s tenure.
But like any natural born entrepreneur, Vikram craved to get back to startups. The promising one he joined six years earlier was now a unicorn.
He was ready for the next challenge, but there was one problem — the land he had come to call home wasn’t the land of infinite opportunity for him anymore.
Even after six years with LinkedIn, Vikram was still a long way off from securing residency in the U.S. Since the process was — and still is — based on one’s country of birth, Vikram found himself in what could have been a staggering 20-year line for a green card. A restricted visa didn’t give him the freedom he needed to manage things other than where he might call home. As an entrepreneur, he knew he needed more freedom to explore his ideas — and it led him to Canada.
“Honestly, Canada did not factor into my life plans but some friends of mine from Toronto really opened my eyes to the city and the possibilities. I remember one telling me that TO is the best-kept secret in North America. Also, I was able to apply for a permanent residency on my own and get it within 6 months. It was amazing.”
America’s loss is Canada’s gain. Since following this latest opportunity, Vikram has authored a book on serverless computing, launched a serverless app platform for developers called Webmatr, and on a whim, launched MovNorth.com — a community that helps tech workers make the transition into Canada. His primary goal is to connect the two rich ecosystems of Silicon Valley and Toronto. Vikram explained to Bloomberg that he approaches MOV North like a product.
“I want people working in tech to have that insight into Canada that I wish I had when I was trying to make my decision. The site has exploded in popularity and is one of the top sites for people in tech who are looking at moving to Canada.”
In its first two days online, the website garnered over 20,000 views, which were sparked by a single LinkedIn post. Vikram is helping to bridge a critical gap. Since its launch in 2017, MOV North has now evolved into a talent matching platform that connects software developers throughout the world with Canadian companies looking to hire top-tier talent. The majority end up taking jobs with tech companies in Canada.
MOV North is driven by Vikram’s belief that it’s the people that make the Valley what it is today and attracting the best technologist to Canada is the best thing the country can do to secure its future in the highly competitive and hyper-connected global economy.
To watch the recording of Vikram’s tech talk and others, visit the Terminal Tech Talks page on our website.
