Fabiano Soriani

Someone asked me why I use PHP for a modern AI application like Skill Deck. For me, the answer is simple: If your AI product lives on the web, Laravel takes care of most of the heavy lifting. Routing, queues, authentication, databases. All reliable and ready to use. GitHub’s Octoverse report showed a 15% rise in PHP repository activity last year. The ecosystem isn’t legacy; it’s growing. Sure, Python is great for training large models or processing massive data sets, and it’s a better fit for some use cases. But when it comes to delivering the product to real users, PHP gets you there faster. It frees my time to focus on what truly matters: using AI to assess people's skills based on real work evidence.

41

12 Comments

YC removed Canada from their approved incorporation list, and it's the trending topic in the Canadian Startup Ecosystem. Canadian founders now have to (re)incorporate elsewhere to get funding (US, Cayman Islands, or Singapore). Canada is the ONLY removed jurisdiction. Michael Liu argues founders should be supported based on nationality, not incorporation. He's right. But here's what I think is getting missed. John Ruffolo just published a piece that explains the real driver: QSBS tax benefits for US angel investors. They need US C-Corps to qualify. Re-domiciling benefits them, not founders. What Canadian founders actually lose by flipping: * The capital gains exemption (LCGE) * Favorable CCPC stock option rules * Refundable SR&ED credits And YC still accepts Cayman and Singapore. If US domicile is so critical, why the exceptions? Here's the part that matters for policy. Even if QSBS explains YC's incentives, there are still real structural issues making Canadian incorporation harder. * CFIB data shows 256 hours per year lost to red tape (roughly a month). * Rounds that close in weeks elsewhere take months here (velocity gap). * SAFEs don't have clear CRA rules, so every deal needs custom legal work. * Each province has different securities rules, so a single round works across 10+ frameworks. * SR&ED credits require consultants to navigate, turning non-dilutive capital into an administrative burden. (<< this is the one I'm working on) If the tax treatment for US angels is driving this, transparency matters. But if there are genuine operational barriers, those are solvable. Let's make it happen. Wishlist: >> Canada needs to make incorporation here work as smoothly as Delaware. >> Clear federal rules on SAFEs. One national framework for early financing. >> Fast-track timelines at regulators. SR&ED without the high consultant tax. >> A stable founder-friendly tax regime. Singapore supports their people wherever they build. It's not apples to apples, but Canada can too. It's ok for founders to go south to get into YC. For some, it makes total sense, and we should support them. I've seen some of those founders raising $$MM and hiring in Canada. That also works and strengthens the ecosystem. And we can also do better to keep more founders building in Canada. It requires being honest about what's broken and actually fixing it.

17

5 Comments

📈 Treat your interns like full-time engineers, not like children working on a toy project. Last week I interviewed a bunch of students for internships and it was an absolute delight. 💪 The work they put in to be at their best is mind boggling. Some people just work harder and smarter. It's impressive to see. They came prepared with *great* questions, and the examples they were discussing were very impressive all the way through. People seem to be hyper focussed on "they use chatgpt" but let me tell you: I'm beyond excited about the next generation. 💡 There's no reason you should isolate them on a small project. Treat them the way they deserve to be treated: great product engineers in the making.

79

5 Comments

Been building products for a decade and I've noticed something weird. Everyone talks about AI being this revolutionary tool that'll change everything. And yeah, it will. But not in the way most people think. The real shift isn't AI replacing developers or making everyone a coder overnight. It's that the barrier between "I have an idea" and "I shipped something" just collapsed. That's it. That's the revolution. I'm solo building what used to require a 12-person team. Not because I'm smarter or faster than those teams were. But because the tooling changed. Cursor, Windsurf, Lovable, Bolt. These aren't magic. They're just removing friction from the execution part. Here's what keeps me up though: most founders are still thinking like it's 2015. They're waiting for permission. Waiting to learn to code "properly". Waiting for the perfect idea. Waiting for funding. Meanwhile, someone who understands their customer problem really well is already shipping three iterations in the time it takes you to write a business plan. The competitive advantage isn't the tool anymore. It never was. It's clarity on what you're actually solving and the willingness to ship something broken and learn from it. What problem have you been sitting on that you could actually build this week?

1

Your Canadian R&D is sitting on $50K–$500K in unclaimed government grants. Most tech founders don't know about SR&ED, IRAP, or the 1,200+ regional programs. And those who do? They're either: 1. Paying consultants 15–30% to file manually (3–4 months) 2. DIY-ing it and missing eligibility (one audit costs more than any fee) 3. Not claiming at all (leaving 7 figures on the table over 5 years) GrantOps automates discovery, eligibility checks, and applications. Connects to GitHub/Jira/Asana. 2% success fee. 90% faster. If you're shipping code in Canada, what's holding you back from claiming? #GrantTech #CanadianStartups #SRandED #GrowthHacking #StartupFunding

4

Most founders are using AI to create more content. I think that is the shallow use case. More posts do not automatically create more trust. More captions do not mean people understand what you are building. More output can still sound forgettable. I learned this while building CreatingContent.ca. At first, I thought the main problem was speed. Founders are busy. They do not have time. They need posts faster. That is true. But it is not the whole truth. The deeper problem is this: Most founders do not know what to do with their own thoughts. They have stories. They have lessons. They have customer conversations. They have weird observations from building. But when they sit down to post, everything turns into generic LinkedIn advice. That is where most AI tools make the problem worse. They help you sound polished. But polished is not the same as original. The content system I am trying to build is different. Not: “write me a viral LinkedIn post” But: “help me turn this raw founder thought into something clear, useful, and still mine.” That is the shift. AI should not replace your voice. It should reduce the distance between what you actually think and what you finally publish. That is what CreatingContent.ca is being built for. Less blank-page stress. Less overthinking. Less sounding like everyone else. More original thoughts shipped faster. Do you think AI content tools are making founders better at content, or just making everyone sound the same? Comment PLAYBOOK and I will send you the founder content workflow I am using. And if you want to test the tool I am building, try CreatingContent.ca.

20

22 Comments

🧠 What if your AI agent actually remembered what users said last week? Until now, most agents were like goldfish. Each new session wiped the slate clean. Developers hacked around it with embedding databases, history prompts, or hand-rolled memory logic. It sorta worked. But it wasn’t pretty. Or fast. Or scalable. That’s why this update from Lewis Liu, Paul Hsu, and Takuto Higuchi from the Microsoft Foundry team caught my attention. At Ignite 2025, they dropped a fully managed, native memory layer for agents. One that lets your AI remember things like allergies, preferences, and past convos across sessions and devices. No extra infra. No janky hacks. Just rich, contextual, persistent memory baked into the agent service. 💡 Developers can now build truly personalized experiences from day one. From fast prototyping to hyperscale. Whether you're running a recipe assistant or enterprise workflow bot, memory unlocks natural, informed, and human-feeling conversations. It’s the kind of infrastructure update that changes what’s possible. Curious how it works under the hood? They even use LLMs to merge duplicate facts and resolve conflicts (e.g., “no dairy” vs. “now allergic to dairy”). 📚 Read the full breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/gWUMdhpK 👉 How are you thinking about memory in your AI stack? #AIagents #LLMs #developers #personalization #Foundry

38

1 Comment

I am buying Shopify stock, and the reason is pretty simple. They are one of the few companies that is actually leaning into AI in a real way. I really noticed it last week when I attended a coding event at their Montreal office. They don't have long internal AI playbooks, but rather a culture that lets people experiment with whatever tools they want and figure things out as they go. Forget the endless training cycles and rigid processes; just smart people using the latest AI to push their work further. When you talk to people inside companies like this, you can feel the difference immediately. Things move faster. Ideas get tested instead of debated. Projects that would take weeks elsewhere take a day. There is this sense of momentum that comes from giving people the freedom to build without overthinking every step. And honestly, this is where most companies are falling behind. They treat AI like something that needs a committee, or a roadmap, or a twelve step rollout plan. Meanwhile Shopify is already on the next version, already trying the next tool, already learning from the next experiment. That kind of culture compounds over time. It shows up in product velocity, creativity, the rate at which teams learn, and eventually in everything else. So yes, I am betting on the companies that are not afraid to move fast and let their people run with AI. And Shopify is one of the very few doing that at scale.

74

Y Combinator is no longer investing in Canadian-domiciled startups. If a Canadian company wants in, it now has to flip elsewhere. YC isn’t wrong to do this. They don’t owe Canada anything. They exist to maximize outcomes for their founders and their LPs. But Canada should care. A lot. Because what this is really saying is that Canadian domicile carries no strategic value in the eyes of one of the world’s most important startup institutions. Possibly worse, it introduces friction. That has consequences. If companies are forced to flip early: • value creation accrues elsewhere • follow-on capital anchors elsewhere • talent, IP, and ownership gravity shift elsewhere At that point, we’re no longer talking about brain drain. We’re talking about value drain. Over the last year, there’s been real effort to break down silos between provinces, between institutions, between parts of the ecosystem. That work matters. Because moments like this expose whether we’re actually aligned as a country on what we want. If Canada has any interest in: • seeing innovation dollars compound domestically • seeing the best founders build enduring companies from here • seeing value flow back into the country then this should be treated as a red flag. The uncomfortable part is this: If the very best founders coming out of Canada were adamant about staying domiciled here, and if doing so expanded opportunity rather than constrained it, YC wouldn’t be forcing flips. The fact that they are tells us something important. Being a Canadian domiciled company is not currently an advantage. It may even be a disadvantage. So the question isn’t what YC should do. The question is: what are we going to do to give the best founders in the country a real, compelling reason to build and stay here?

187

40 Comments

"𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹." That phrase used to close deals. In 2025? It's a red flag. Canadian SaaS founders aren't hiring for potential anymore. They're hiring proof. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁? Investors are cautious. Budgets are tight. Every hire has to carry real weight from day one. Founders can't afford the ramp time. They can't afford the learning curve. They need someone who's already done the work outbound, cold calls, territory development, revenue generation. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀: Your narrative needs to shift from "I can do this" to "I've done this." That doesn't mean you hire the most experienced person. It means you hire someone with recent, relevant proof. They've shipped product in the last 12 months. They've closed deals in the last quarter. They've built a team, process, or system that's still working today. Not five years ago at a different company in a different market. Recently. Because the market has changed. The playbooks have changed. And what worked in 2021 doesn't work now. Founders who are still hiring for potential are getting burned. The ones who are hiring for proof are building teams that can actually execute. There's no room for passengers anymore. Is this too harsh, or just the reality? 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹? 𝗪𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼'𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸. 

8

2 Comments