alt Hacker NewsImportant added context here: the list went from US, Cayman, Singapore, Canada to US, Cayman, Singapore. It's not as if YC was generally investing in non-US based entities before. Canada was an exception and isn't anymore.
We're a global employer, and just employing people in different jurisdictions is kind of a nightmare (totally worth it, though). I can't imagine how much of a pain it must be to try to manage investment stakes in foreign corporations.
It's a weird change though. Canada is one of the most investor-friendly and startup-friendly jurisdictions I can think of. If you want to grow quickly, you need to be thinking about how to get an office set up in places like Calgary (lots of machine-learning talent there), Toronto, and Vancouver, and when you do so you'll find the government incentives and lower wages lead to you spending about half on total compensation versus a typical American startup hub.
I worked at a place that expanded into Calgary and picked up a bunch of ML engineers with oil-and-gas backgrounds (who were eager for something outside the energy sector) and the government picked up half of the payroll tab for several years. There is also, of course, no health insurance benefits to worry about.