Our goal is to hire the best people we can. We also have to find the profile of people who want to work in our environment. If you want to work on research full time—to be committed and focused on that, beyond your academic work—we offer a great environment. Whether we could provide the kind of compensation you'd get if you joined a start-up that will grow.... We might not compete on that basis, but if you want to work long term in research for the public good and see a benefit to your country, we're the perfect place to go. We've seen some people we hired go and join a start-up, obviously. That's good. If they contribute to our country, that's fine. In fact, that kind of fluidity between NRC and start-ups in the ecosystem is something we want to encourage.
We always have to ensure that our workplace is outstanding. If we look at what our people think about working at NRC—whether we support them and whether it's a well-run organization.... If we do that well, our mandate is very exciting. Hopefully, they're going to stay with us, but we have to really focus, as management, on making sure our workplace is world class.