Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups | Hacker News Reader

Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

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Not if Toronto keeps hemorrhaging talent. I graduated from the University of Toronto last year and can only name 2 of my classmates who are actually working in Toronto now. The rest are in SF, Seattle, and NYC - including many people who have family in Toronto, like me. All of my friends who were seriously working on a startup have moved it to the Bay Area.

Many of us would love to move back to Toronto 'eventually', for family reasons and because it's a great city overall, but for now the money and opportunities in the States are too good. In SF I'm making 2-3x what I'd make in Toronto and get to work on a globally-relevant system. And 80% of my social network is here now, too.

do you get a green card easier as a canadian than people from europe for example? I'm from germany and know many people who would like to work in the states, but it's really a big problem to get the green card. It takes companies much effort and money to get you in the states for more than 3 months.

Canadians get access to TN class work visa. It's meant for temporary work, but gives a few years to figure out a more permanent approach.

What would a more permanent approach be? Marriage?

H-1B, O-1, L-1, and perhaps more.

I thought the H-1B was a temporary visa?

I am not an immigration lawyer, but this is my understanding: The H-1B is similar to the TN but each have their pros / cons: TN is much cheaper (~$50 + lawyer fees) and there is no cap / application deadline. You apply at the border so there is also virtually no waiting time assuming you get it.

The downside of the TN is that it is a "temporary" permit. Technically it's not actually a visa. It simply allows you to work and live in the US for a "temporary" amount of time. The temporary part is very gray in this case, since it is up to the discretion of the border guard to determine if you are using it in a temporary sense. Similar to the H-1B it can last for up to 3 years, and can be renewed after that.

The other big difference is that dual-intent is not allowed on the TN permit. In other words, you are not supposed to apply for a green card while you are on it. The H-1B is dual intent and therefore that's what you want if you want to get a greencard.

A pretty typical path for Canadians who start working in the US and decide to stay is TN -> H-1B -> Green Card. However, it is not easier for Canadians to get an H-1B. They must participate in the lottery like everybody else.

One correction:

> "In other words, you are not supposed to apply for a green card while you are on it."

You can actually do this, it's very painful but it's not rare. The gotcha is that the moment you leave the country your TN is kaput, so you're effectively trapped in the USA until the green card process is complete.

> The gotcha is that the moment you leave the country your TN is kaput, so you're effectively trapped in the USA until the green card process is complete.

Not quite true. Once you've filed for adjustment of status (which you can only do once your priority date is current), you can also file an I-131 for advanced parole, and after receiving this, you can leave and re-enter the US with it. Technically you're not on a TN anymore though.

It is a NON IMMIGRANT Guest Worker Visa good for 3 years. It can be extended for an additional 6 years. If they apply for a green card, it can be extended indefinitely on a yearly basis.

Virgil Keep America At Work

Don't forget eb5 except it's super slow. Probably takes 2 years from initial investment until you have your conditional greencard. Then another couple of years until you have a full fledged one.

Work in overseas branch as a manager. Get moved to US on L1 visa. Apply for employment based green card, takes about a year.

Isn't this how a lot of the big firms are using Their European offices? I've met a lot of people in the valley that worked in places like Zurich, or London for their first year with the company before moving to CA.

Companies will sponsor a green card on a TN, it is just riskier since it's not a dual intent visa.

You can also apply for H-1B and if you get that then you can just switch to it then apply for a green card.

Would that be the same for Germans?

No sorry, the TN is only available to Canadians and Mexicans. It's based on NAFTA. https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/employment/nafta.h...

You have to immigrate like all the other immigrants, but since you are German, the permanent resident quota is barely used for your nationality. The USA creates a quota system for green cards and then splits them up on a nationality basis. India, China and the Philippines have a long lineup for visas.

The USA creates a quota/lineup system on a per country basis.

You have 3 basic options:

1. Work at a European office for a year, transfer on an L visa, apply for a green card once your in the USA.

2. Apply for an H1-B around march/april, see if you made the lottery, get your visa in october, apply for a green card once your in the usa.

3. Work at a European office for X years, apply for a green card outside of the USA, starting immediately while your working there, wait until you get a green card, move to the USA. It took about a 1 year to 1.5 years for a former coworker to do it this way.

O-1 & E visas are too special case to think about for the most part. And there is always getting married to a US citizen.

#3 is an interesting option that I hadn't heard of until now. Would this option be available to remote workers? Or is it reserved only for those working with companies that have a physical office in their country as well as the US?

Actually you don't have to be working for the company at all for #3. I think he wasn't working for the company until his green card came through.

Basically it's like applying for a green card normally, except your out of the country and you get the visa with "consular processing". I'm not sure if you can work remotely for the company or not while the green card process is happening.

I think most employers don't want to do it although because your not working for them while it's processing. With a dual intent visa you can work for the company while the green card is processing and your in the US office.

This outlines it: http://www.path2usa.com/employment-based-green-card

*Note: I know technically employers apply for you, not you yourself independently. It's just easier to write it that way.

One can't apply for H1-B. A company on your behalf has to do that. And I never heard of option 3. Do you have a link for that?

O1 is a fairly common visa type for startup founders

Are any of these options available to people without a degree?

TN status/visa can be obtained without a degree but it is a little less straightforward and has a higher chance of denial.

TN visas aren't dual purpose so when it comes to staying permanently Canadians are on the backlog with the rest of the world.

Waterloo grad here. Seeing pretty much the same thing.

Really not difficult to imagine why Canadian tech companies have mostly stopped being competitive on the global stage, considering most of the talent they have access to at these pitiful salaries are essentially left-overs.

Unfortunately, I honestly don't see how the situation can improve. It's a classic tragedy of the commons situation. Companies act in self-interest by paying as low as they possibly can, with no regards for the damage being done to the Canadian talent pool, and have little incentive to do otherwise until most of their peers do the same.

Interestingly this is almost the same commentary for every "next silicon valley" city we read about here. I think sometimes people are trying to cash in on the ideal before it's even been formed. Why is everyone so rushed to be the next SV anyway? Why not be the best Toronto, or whatever city of focus that happens to support entrepreneurship through whatever programs.

I feel like being a next SV town is sort of like how every un-employed person I know is the CEO of a startup : / .

> Interestingly this is almost the same commentary for every "next silicon valley" city we read about here.

That may be true, but you have to realize even the other "next silicon valley" contenders in the US can easily offer more than double the salary to developers compared to Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Toronto is not even playing in the same league in that aspect.

:*(

Even worse than the salary is the attitude at Toronto area startups. Elitist "you-should-feel-so-lucky-you're-at-a-startup-now-work-for-peanuts"...

Leaving the Toronto ad-tech startup I was at to work (remote) for a NYC ad-tech startup (well, recent startup and growing) was the best thing that ever happened to me. Got lucky to work for the best founders and senior management I have ever had in my career.

Well, sounds like that got that part of Silicon Valley right.

Outside of silicon valley and New York salaries in the US are not actually that great. According to glassdoor the average junior developer is actually only 60k when you consider the whole country. Junior software engineer on payscale is median 55k.

Also, in some place like San Fransisco the cost of living is going to be 2x or more, so that 2-3x higher salary will end up translating into maybe 1.2x. Salaries in Toronto are still low, but not nearly as much as some people make it out to be.

The US is a big place, so if you look at it as a whole it's definitely not going to look as attractive. If you look specifically at the tech hubs however, even if we don't account for the 2 biggest US tech hubs, SV and NYC, places like Seattle and Boston still have much higher median salary and salary potential compared to the two biggest Canadian tech hubs, Toronto and Vancouver, and with comparable cost of living to boot.

The AngelList salaries data confirms this at least when it comes to the startup job sector: https://angel.co/salaries

Sampling a bunch of the jobs listed for Seattle shows that most are senior level. Senior level in Toronto is less on average, but it's definitely not half as much in comparable places.

One notable exception is Amazon, who starts people out of school at 90k. This is definitely an outlier. If you can get into Amazon out of school, might be worth taking advantage of it.

> Sampling a bunch of the jobs listed for Seattle shows that most are senior level. Senior level in Toronto is less on average, but it's definitely not half as much in comparable places.

I fail to see the value in making a distinction in terms of seniority unless you have good reasons to believe why the Seattle postings on AngelList might be skewed towards senior level to a higher degree than the Toronto postings, but your point is certainly valid.

If we look at the aggregate data, Toronto and Vancouver have average salaries of $61K and $59K respectively, and Seattle and Boston, $92K and $91K. That's closer to 1.5x, so "more than double" was definitely a bit hyperbolic, but this vicious death spiral (of low Canadian salaries -> brain drain into the US -> under-competing Canadian companies -> rinse and repeat) has been taking quite a toll on the Canadian tech sector, and has serious implications for its future, so I'd rather err on the side of hyperbole over understatement because I have a vested interest in this matter as a Canadian citizen and tech worker.

> Also, in some place like San Fransisco the cost of living is going to be 2x or more, so that 2-3x higher salary will end up translating into maybe 1.2x.

This is a pretty important point...

Currently it looks like a ~100k salary in San Fransisco is required to maintain the same standard of living that 55k gets you in Atlanta, Dallas, Raleigh, Pittsburgh, and essentially every other big city I've looked at. So about 1.8x higher is required.

For Toronto it's about 1.9x.

I've heard this argument often and it's somewhat valid, but it doesn't take into account that the amount left after expenses are paid is still a lot more in the Bay Area, and that can be saved or invested or used to open up other options which are not available to the person making half as much with half the expenses somewhere else.

Cars cost basically the same across the US. So do flights, vacation homes, stocks, etc. For many, the idea is to pay the high cost of living here, save up, then move to somewhere much cheaper after an early retirement, career change, etc. Or you can stay until you retire and be extremely wealthy relative to the rest of the country / world. For me, it's not a tough choice, even though rent is ridiculous.

Edit: let us not also forget that the ceiling for pay as an engineer in the Bay Area is currently around half a million a year in salary, more if you get valuable stock options. It's not really possible to come close to that anywhere else as far as I'm aware. The average is lower than that, but where I'm from, you'd be very lucky to get 100k as a senior engineer. It makes things like renting a place here while paying off the mortgage on a home you rent out elsewhere (Portland or Hawaii or whatever you're into) totally viable.

> For many, the idea is to pay the high cost of living here, save up, then move to somewhere much cheaper after an early retirement, career change, etc.

I can definitely understand why this is attractive. Maybe I'm on the other side of the argument because I'm not really an engineer and don't plan on being one. So while there are jobs I'd consider in the Bay Area, there's a similar number of similarly paying jobs in NYC and DC, where rent is less.

> Cars cost basically the same across the US. So do flights, vacation homes, stocks, etc.

Yes, but the cost of living calculator should be resulting the same amount saved, after all expenses are paid.

> Edit: let us not also forget that the ceiling for pay as an engineer in the Bay Area is currently around half a million a year in salary

This is the most convincing argument, I think... If that's true, that the ceiling (after adjusting for cost of living) is higher in the Bay Area, then yeah it's a pretty clear choice for engineers.

agreed. and I agree with many people out here in Seattle, that I'd really rather not see the city become "the next Silicon Valley". I'd much prefer Seattle become the best it can be, by itself, without needing to draw on Silicon Valley (or anywhere else, for that matter) for guidance and inspiration. that's the way I'm sure a lot of people here and in other cities feel about their own towns.

> Why not be the best Toronto

Toronto is already the best Toronto in the world, although it was a close competition last year.

With whom

This happened before in the late 90s. Before the first bubble. What happened then was some slingshot effect, when Canadians go to SF and make $200K for 10 years, and still can't afford a house and are faced with mediocre schools unless they want to commute (which they don't) they may come back.

come back to Toronto where they also can't afford a home? Or live in the suburbs of the GTA and slog it through some of the worst traffic in North America for two hours each way?

SF Bay Area isn't that much different from GTA. High housing costs, high cost of living, long commutes. Although the big difference is that the high salary somewhat makes up for it (although whether or not the salary is actually high enough is debatable).

Yep the salaries in the Bay Area are from what I have seen about double what one would get in the GTA. The housing prices are insane, but a nice three bedroom in Toronto that is transit accessible to the downtown is just shy of a million $ now, or over it. And the salaries are far lower.

So yeah, a lot of talent will just go south. Or get lucky like me and go work for Google in Waterloo. The actual Toronto employment market is pretty yuck.

> a nice three bedroom in Toronto that is transit accessible to the downtown is just shy of a million $ now

I own a house that is on two bus routes, and it takes me 45 ~ 50 minutes to get downtown (specifically work which is right downtown), and it's not even close to that price.

[That said, I looked into moving to another neighbourhood with worse transit access that was not that far away, and the real estate agent was selling it with a "crap" house for ~$800K with the idea that you would spend money on top of that to tear the existing house down and rebuild another one on top of it.]

Too late to edit, but I realize that I may have not been entirely clear with the 'not even close'. My house is worth much less than the $1m price point mentioned above.

Detached house is over 1M in Toronto. But there are plenty of semis and townhouses that are way less (700K?) and condos walkable to downtown for half of that.

Amazon is in a class-A tower right next to the banks and they cannot hire enough.

And ALL the good engineers I know have good jobs in Toronto or Waterloo. But there are plenty of bad ones that wouldn't pass a phone screen.

Winnipeg will rise again.

Montréal is going great too.

Something something Hamilton!

I definitely knew who wrote this comment before checking it.

I'm rooting for Hamilton. I live just outside it. It's a place with such huge potential.

But seems like the centre of gravity for not-Toronto tech in southern Ontario is Waterloo, unfortunately.

Compared to SF? And it's not the only factor. And I didn't say they'd all come back to Toronto. Schools, proximity to extended family, less likelihood of mass shooting, and room in your house for your kids can all be additional factors. If you're established enough in your career, you can work remote for US companies or bring work with you in some other way. Sure, Toronto and Vancouver aren't cheap, but they're more affordable than many places in the bay area, especially for what you get.

Hit the nail on the head. Until Toronto can match the competitive salaries in the Bay Area I will be working in the US.

Kind of surprised that this seems to be the sentiment. I rather live in a place where I make less, but the wealth is better distributed. To me a high standard of living is not just a good salary, but also good living conditions of those around me. If Toronto is to be the next Bay Area, and I have to walk over the homeless to get to work, I'm out of here.

> To me a high standard of living is not just a good salary, but also good living conditions of those around me.

To most it's the opposite. Wealth is relative so I'd rather live in a 3rd world country making $50k than SF making $150k.

I doubt anyone can make you leave the States or Canada to work on a third world country for that paltry amount of money.

Have you ever lived in a third world country? I lived in Bangladesh until I was 5. Homeless people in SF is one thing. But children begging in the street. Fuck, I don't have the stomach for that.

Yes, I lived in Vietnam (where the median salary is $150-$200 a month) for 6 months on ~$20,000.

It was loads of fun and I enjoyed a lifestyle equivalent to earning at least $250k back in SF. Hotel room in the city center, maid service, bar night every night, motorcycle, valet parking everywhere, restaurants 3x a day, etc.

> But children begging in the street. Fuck, I don't have the stomach for that

There appeared to be a lot less of that level of poverty in Saigon than in SF, but maybe that's because poor people don't live in the city like they do in the US. In any case, my presence there surely wasn't making anyone poorer so I don't feel bad about it.

I don't think rayiner suggested that you're contributing to the state of affairs, just that its rather heartbreaking to see the level of abject poverty in many non-western countries. And even if it sounds supremely selfish, I do like living in an area/country where I don't have to see that every day on my way to work.

If you're an American you need 6 figures to pay back your $100k+ student loan debt. It's not like these young tech employees are living high on the hog. They move to these tech centers because they have to.

If you work in Toronto as a programmer, you are middle class or upper-middle class or you should be looking for a different job. There's plenty of work.

Student loans of 100k+ are very atypical for an American graduate. The average undergraduate indebtedness at graduation is closer to 30k.

Have you lived in Toronto? Houses in the city average over 1M CAD and there are tons of vagrants on the street.

I've lived in Toronto and Portland (Oregon). Portland had more vagrants than I've experienced in Toronto. I'm sure the absolute number is probably higher, but the distribution doesn't seem the same. From what I hear, SF also has a large problem with vagrants / homeless. I'm not sure that "move to SF" is the solution to the "I don't want to be around these vagrants" problem.

Just making sure, my point was not "I don't want to be around these people". My point was that I don't want to partake in a system which such a big income-gap.

In the Netherlands (where I come from) the average saleries for programmers are even lower, but in return you get a pretty great social system and a much saner work/life balance.

I wouldn't assume that Toronto does a better job at income equality, just that the weather is significantly harsher.

I currently live in Toronto, but I didn't buy a house. My monthly expenses would be nearly 30% higher for a morgage and condo fees for the place I'm renting now. I rather invest that in a business.

As for people living on the street. According to wikipedia the estimated homeless population in San Fransisco is between 7000 and 10000. The estimated number in Toronto is 5,253 (source: Toronto.ca), but since Toronto has 3.5 times the population, this means that the homeless population is at least 5 times bigger.

Have you considered Seattle? I used to work in Toronto and I am currently living here and I love it.

The greater Toronto area includes other cities and the suburbs. Not a fair comparison to SF proper.

Compare SF bay area to Toronto would be more fair.

I'm not sure any comparison would ever really be fair simply because SF is much more hospitable in the winter as compared to Toronto. That has an effect on homeless populations as well. Compare Vancouver and Toronto and you'll see a similar difference.

The city of Toronto is a lot bigger than SF as a result of amalgamation[1], but most vagrants "live" in downtown core, which is an area a lot smaller than SF.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamation_of_Toronto

Do you think there'll be opportunities to start terrific technology companies in Toronto ~5-10 years down the line, when "everyone moves back"? Especially if they pay better?

There's always the opportunity. You could start a terrific technology company in Toronto (and stay there) right now, but you'd be an outlier. That said, I think it'll only take a few high-visibility 'anchor' companies to seed the city and start pulling people back in. And that could very reasonably happen in the next 5-10 years.

toronto salaries would shock most american developers. a startup i interviewed at starts entry level developers at $42k and senior developers were making $70k. i was told my ask of $125k cdn was double what they would consider paying me

I am not sure what startups you are applying for, number one rule in Toronto is 1. never use a recruiter because they take 20-10K of your salary, or the companies hiring budget. 2. Apply to startups that are doing well. I am making 120K cad, at a startup. I am a senior tl in training though.

Yeah, anything over $100K CDN is basically impossible in Toronto - anyone that good is already working down south.

I recently had to make that same decision myself, and chose Toronto. The salaries on the jobs I was interviewing for (not to mention perks) were astronomically high. I'd considered just going to work for 3 years, saving as much as I could, then coming back to Canada.

I the end, I worried that I would never come back in spite of my early intentions. Toronto's a great city, and I'm quite comfortable with my compensation, but I don't begrudge anyone who moves for the chance to be instantly wealthy.

You forget that as you move out, talent moves in as well!

I collaborate with a bunch of super-talented creative people here and all of us are new to the city. Just because Toronto-born people leave doesn't mean Toronto has a talent shortage :D

It depends on how long they can resist the suction that is the Bay Area.

Is the ratio of compensation really 2-3x?

One datapoint: Senior Dev (say Level 1 Senior) base pay is $100k. So are you saying SF will pay this person at least $200k?

Yes, seniors usually get more than 250k at established companies. Provided you can make it in as a senior.

Yes. Junior dev base pay in SF is 100k. I know junior devs here making 130k. Add RSUs, factor in the exchange rate... the multiplier is easily 2-3x.

Could be worse. Salaries in London, UK are even lower than Toronto.

Doesn't feel like it for me.

It was anecdotal but I think once you factor in rent it's definitely lower.

Average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in centre of Toronto is £750. In London it's twice that and probably not in the centre. Plus tenants pay the taxes on property in the UK.

Taxes are also higher in the UK than Canada. Travel cards in Toronto are fixed at £75 a month. In London you pay for your zone which starts at £124.50 going above £300+ for Zone 9. No doubt it's a better network but Toronto's flat rate system is better on your wallet.

Eeh ... as a Torontonian developer I don't buy it. Most of the good graduates we have move to Bay Area or Seattle. If you want your career to progress meaningfully you pretty much have to move to the states.

Maybe this might change in the future but the story on the ground is very different.

Also nitpick - we are the fourth most populous city in North America, and only Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles have a larger population. As of mid last year, Toronto contains more people than Chicago.

Toronto is the seventh largest metro area in North America. 2/3 the size of Chicago.

About the same size as Washington and Philadelphia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metro...

The city of Toronto absorbed many suburbs a while ago, so the metro area isn't much bigger than the city proper. So Toronto (just the city) is bigger than Chicago (just the city), whereas metro Chicago is much bigger than just Chicago.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

REALLY strange choice of data point for Toronto -- it uses a much smaller land area than for the US cities.

Greater Toronto Area - 7,124 km^2

Chicago Metro Area - 28,120 km^2

Houston Metro Area - 26,061 km^2

Dallas-Fort Worth - 24,059 km^2

Washington Metro - 14,412 km^2

Philadelphia Metro - 13,256 km^2

A much more apples-to-apples comparison would be the Golden Horseshoe (7.005 million / 10,097 km^2), or Greater Golden Horseshoe (8.759 million / 31,561 km^2).

I believe that Chicago's population is also stagnant, whereas the GHA has grew 4.5% from 2006-2011, so extrapolating to 2016 would put it at 9.1 million. Still smaller than the Chicago metro area, but not by a lot.

These area are huge. Switzerland is 41,285 km^2, Belgium is 30,528 km^2, The Netherlands is 41,543 km^2.

Having lived in Chicago, I was genuinely surprised by Belgium's comparably small size.

Try the Los Angeles metro area - 87,490 km^2 (and 18.7m people)...

Dan Martell even moved to the Bay Area to build his companies.

In Toronto, I'd tend to say the main tent-pole companies of the scene are clique financed, and know the ins and outs of subsidies. There is quite a bit of skill in the area; but the climate of risk aversion leads to depending on countless hackathons to substitute for any true R&D. Nice city, though tough to find a job.

> Also nitpick - we are the fourth most populous city in North America, and only Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles have a larger population. As of mid last year, Toronto contains more people than Chicago.

Ugh, this is a pet peeve of mine. The city limits are drawn in such a way that Toronto _technically_ edges out Chicago. Torontonians seem to feel this is a meaningful point of pride.

Get real. The metro Toronto area is 7 million people. The metro Chicago area is nearly 10 million.

Toronto downtown absorbed North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough in the late 90s. It is not until last year that our population edged out Chicago, so whatever the reason for the amalgamation it definitely wasn't because we wanted to beat Chicago out in a pissing contest. However, you want to interpret the data, the truth is that the article writer did not do their homework.

Yes, the author committed another pet peeve of mine: omitting Mexico City from the list of largest cities in North America. Particularly stupid, given that it is the largest!

Huh? Get real? The 10 million "Greater Chicago Area" you're referring to is 10,857 miles. The 6 million Toronto area you're referring to is only 2,751 miles. That's almost 4 times the size but only 1.6 times the population.

I think the sizes are in reality pretty close and figuring out which is bigger seems very nuanced depending on where you draw the lines. That being said I'll go along with you and say Chicago is probably bigger for the most part right now. Chicago definitely feels like a bigger city when you're downtown anyways.

The numbers you're using for comparison though? C'mon, who's being prideful?

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blogs-and-comment/so-is-toro...

You can include the entire "extended" golden horseshoe area (all the way to K/W and Peterborough) and you've still got only 8.7 million people in 12,185 square miles [1]. By the way, I was already using the golden horseshoe area already (Hamilton, etc.) since I used _seven_ million, not _six_.

There are simply more people in the Chicago area. By a decent margin. There's nothing wrong with that. I think this is a thing for Torontonians because of the perpetual inferiority complex we Canadians [2] have with respect to the U.S. :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horseshoe

[2] I am from Toronto, so it's weird to accuse me of being prideful? I'm guessing you think I'm somehow "defending" Chicago? My point is that having more city in your city is nothing to be proud (or ashamed) about.

So this article is about people like me. I went to school in Toronto and stayed. In the > 5 years since:

- I joined a seed stage startup

- That startup raised a series A ($N millions in total financing)

- Was then acquired by a Fortune 500 company, which has kept the business as a separate unit for > 1 year

- I was a party to the deal :)

I have found salaries to be competitive when total cost of living adjustments are made (even despite the currency value). Importantly, the labour market here values skills over credentials - so there's a distinct pragmatism in the air.

So as far as startups go - not the publicly traded and pre-series-G-mega-SF-corps - I think there's a vibrant opportunity and reality.

"Toronto is already home to a number of successful venture-backed businesses, such as Shopify, KIK, ..."

Fact check time. Shopify's headquarters is in Ottawa. Kik is in Waterloo.

Don't know about KIK, but Shopify has a large development office in Toronto near King and Spadina.

They also just invested in a huge space (King Portland Centre) that won't be built until 2019.

Huge is putting it mildly. This is a pretty major campus.

Kik requires devs to be in Waterloo.

Shopify is also in Montreal

how is the tech scene at Montreal?

Regrettable

Some say it's ok. There are some startups, but most of the environment seems to be "corporate oriented", and .NET is very popular

future? any new policies taking shape to attract more companies?

I read somewhere that due to French clause in Quebec companies stay away from the city. Is it true?

There is some aspect of the French law that keeps companies far, yes, though there's a limit (the law doesn't apply to small companies in some aspects)

https://www.thestar.com/business/small_business/leadership/2...

That's a shame. Given that Vancouver and Toronto both have higher rents and are less attractive cities than Montreal, I was hoping that it'd be heating up in terms of jobs.

A certain irony that the "language barrier" for most people will be C# and not French.

It's not bad, but not great. Some startups, lots of corporate. I've never had trouble finding work, though.

Ok. I'm making a decent living here doing Ruby and JS development, but salaries are not great.

Waterloo is arguably part of greater Toronto. The local commuter service (Go Transit) reaches all the way to Kitchener-Waterloo.

I say "arguably" because it's a two-hour train ride each way, which is pretty brutal.

Waterloo is over 100km away from Toronto

Which is similar to the distance between Santa Clara and the Golden Gate Bridge, for what it's worth.

Does driving between Santa Clara to the Golden Gate Bridge include farmland in the middle?

No Waterloo is not and will not call itself a part of greater Toronto. It's like saying Baltimore is a part of DC (just a little bit closer), or like saying Philadelphia is a part of New York City (just a little bit farther).

Kitchener-Waterloo is a distinct town, and is a part of the original Canadian "Tech Triangle" - with the demise of RIM/Blackberry, it's lost the lustre but there's no way anyone can take seriously bundling Waterloo into the Greater Toronto Area.

Bad example, Baltimore and DC are usually considered part of the same metro area.

If Waterloo is part of Toronto, you may as well count in Hamilton, Oakville, and Milton as well. Hell, throw in Niagara Falls.

Those cities are actually part of a geographic region called the Golden Horseshoe Area, which is more comparable to Census Statistical Areas in the US (like the SF Bay Area, Baltimore-Washington Area, and Chicagoland).

It's called the "Greater Toronto Area" for a reason.

Counter fact check: there's a massive Shopify office on Spadina

Yes, they have a big office in Toronto but their main (and largest) office is on Ottawa.

It's really too bad I Waterloo us not in Toronto. It would be like Stanford being the heart of SV or MIT being in Boston.

While we're at it, a bunch of YC companies are headquartered or have an office there like Appcanary, Upverter, PagerDuty. Big tech companies have offices there too, like Mozilla and Google (mostly sales in Toronto for now, eng in Waterloo). Lots of small bootstrapped tech startups, consultancies, and agencies, too—like the famous Teehan+Lax agency that got bought by Facebook. This is just from the top of my head, I'd love to see a more comprehensive list.

Odd they didn't mention Amazon Toronto or IBM. Amazon has 300+ SDEs here (myself included), room for 800 developers in the new office that just opened. Not sure how big IBM is, but I've heard it's fairly big operation here.

It's not that Amazon is a startup itself (what, 100k+ employees worldwide doesn't count?) but that when you have a big company like that you often see people leave to make startups. Young guys spend a couple years being mentored and becoming great developers, then leave to go pursue their passions.

I have two former managers that are both very senior people in local Toronto startups, plus a number of friends who've left to hit up the start-up scene both as founders and early hires.

How is the pay at Amazon Toronto and what are the projects like?

I work in tech (not Amazon) and live in Seattle, and given the reputation I don't think I'd really want to work for them in this city given the other options we have here.

But if they paid top-notch salary and had great work, I'd seriously consider it as an option when moving back to Toronto. The employment options seem quite limited and I have a hard time justifying a move home if I end up working on less interesting technology and make less than half of what I do here. I'm afraid of my only options moving home being a massive pay cut, boring work, a terrible commute, and being priced out of real estate anywhere appealing in the city. :(

RE: IBM, if I recall most/all of their engineering is in Markham, they don't treat their employees particularly well, and the pay is so-so (though maybe market rates given Toronto).

It's not in Markham. It's on the other side of Steeles, over 50 feet away from Markham ;-)

yea.. Toronto is just not competitive at all compared to other "scenes"

Re: pay- It's less than in Seattle, it's "competitive" for Toronto (ie: few companies pay this much, but then few companies need to here). Never heard of anyone leaving for better money unless they were headed for Seattle or the Bay.

Re: projects- there's lots going on in Toronto. Depends what you're interested in.

Toronto: housing is overpriced. Just a fact of the city. No one under 30 is ever going to own a house in the city, but there's lots of decent condos going up. Find a place on the subway or Go lines and your commute is pretty painless. And the Amazon office is 200m from Union station, don't need to go outside. That was nice in the winter.

I moved to Toronto from Seattle.

If you value street fashion, nightlife, music, no driving, etc then the bay area isn't very appealing. I wouldn't move back west until I'm married with kids.

I'm 22, rent a huge apt with two friends for ~$900/m each, live on the main subway line (15 min to work). I couldn't spend more than $4k/m if I tried (bought a roomba, tom ford shades, eat steak and berries).

Some toronto companies I admire:

- https://www.wealthsimple.com/ - http://www.uken.com/ - https://shoeboxapp.com/ - https://www.opencare.com/ - https://tophat.com/ - https://www.pagerduty.com/ - http://www.eventmobi.com/

I worked in the SF Bay Area for ~4 years. After wanting to re-visit life in Canada for personal reasons, I ended up in Toronto last year. With no expectations, but some sense of understanding that Toronto is Canada's best tech hub, I made a move and worked at an early stage tech consultancy. A lot of smart and talented people from local schools (e.g. Waterloo/UofT). But like most have mentioned, you still see a huge migration of that talent going to US-based tech hubs as the opportunities are more favourable (career-wise and financially).

After a year (and luckily meeting my significant other) we've decided to explore opportunities in the Bay Area again, and will be moving back this summer.

There really isn't anything quite like the SF scene at the moment for tech startups.

This article is great in championing what the city can aspire to, but there is a lot of room left to become a contender.

Can't wait to see what Toronto's tech scene will evolve to in the next 5-10 years. Hopefully in time for when I want to settle down again in Canada.

Waterloo has been investing heavily in improving their public transit infrastructure in recent years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_rapid_transit

http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/projectinformatio...

Once it is completed, I think this will make Waterloo and Toronto feel a lot closer together. Note that the 'transit hub' mentioned above is a 2 minute walk from communitech (https://www.communitech.ca/), Google, Shopify, D2L etc.

Those are local projects (Waterloo/Kitchener/Cambridge), right? Are they actually planning on improving the very slow and intermittent rail connection to Toronto?

Yes, these are local projects, but with the amount of chaos they're creating with construction, I'm willing to believe that once it's finished they'll make much more frequent trips to Toronto. I believe there would be demand for it as the King/Victoria area is changing rapidly. Google just took over a building that was an old derelict factory with broken windows 2 years ago. This building is within feet of the proposed transit station. Lots of new apartment buildings going up in the area. The communitech hub has also been getting much more busy in the last few years.

Communitech is about to get a lot busier too... They've expanded into the old Google space and there are potential tenants going on tours through it every 10 minutes.

OK, so they might have a few more frequent trips, but the train itself still takes an hour and a half. And even if you assume this horrendous construction makes traveling within the KW region magically fast, you're still talking a 1 hour 45 minutes commute, each way.

I think Toronto will still be pretty far away.

That hangs on whether or not Metrolinx can purchase the rail between Georgetown to Bramalea.

http://www.metrolinx.com/en/projectsandprograms/corridorowne...

This article states that they want to bring 2-way all day service... someday.

Ultimately if Toronto wants to be the best they will pay the best (adjusted for cost of living). They're best bet is that the bay cost of living becomes so unbearable that they can be competitive in take-home dollars.

As it is, the money for developers is in the bay by a huge margin.

The problem is that the cost of living is already extremely unaffordable and even more so in Vancouver. What could be a competitive advantage for either of these two cities in Canada is just not there. Sadly, the main major competitive advantage is a more lax immigration process over the US.

Yeah, the pay here in Toronto is much lower, even when you account for cost of living vs. San Fran.

One consideration that offsets that is medical insurance. If your health care is not fully covered by your employer.

I ran some numbers once and the "rent difference" was roughly $3k (typical 1 - 2 bedroom apartment at $4k vs. The roughly $1k I spend) and the platinum medical looking like roughly $500/mo

Add in a car, ($0 in Toronto, $1000 in The bay w/ parking, insurance, gas & the vehicle)

All said and done, $55k appears to make the cost of living difference "break-even"

If I'm on roughly $100k in Toronto, $155k would be even. Now that doesn't adjust for exchange rate, so you might get ~20% play there. Maybe the $135k median I've read about is roughly on target in terms of total food cost, etc...)

I think there'd be some cachet to having a "big five" employer on your resume, so a year or two in one of the mega-shops would add value to future earnings if you started looking elsewhere, or a handful of other unicorn-class names might have a similar impact.

All in all, I'm not convinced that taking a San Fran gig would necessarily feel like streets paved with gold and scooping up baskets of money (which grows on trees), so much as it'd be a nice, sunny, ultra-nerdy town in the heart of movin' & shakin'

Incidentally, if anyone would like to disabuse me of any errors in my napkin math, I would welcome it. I'd love to get a more realistic idea of the difference.

> Add in a car, ($0 in Toronto, $1000 in The bay w/ parking, insurance, gas & the vehicle)

My observation is that's great to not have a car in SF, I prefer not to. But it's impossible not to have a car in Toronto.

Why is it $0 in Toronto?

Doesn't look too impossible to not have a car in Toronto

(also there are things like Car2Go, no?)

Going carless in Toronto is very possible. After I moved to my current digs at Yonge and Eglinton, I noticed I used my car less than once a month, so I got rid of it.

If you're gonna do this, make sure you're near the subway. Buses and streetcars are a lot less convenient than the subway.

Impossible? I lived in Toronto for ten years without a car and never had trouble getting around.

$0 is a bit misleading, as you will need $130/mo for a metropass.

I'm shoes & a bike... Which is how I got away with claiming $0 on that, but yeah, I'd go so far as to concede a metro-pass could be required for some.

Personally, it's a 20 minute walk to work at Yonge & bloor ... So car isn't really critical here for me.

Toronto without a car is very easy so long as you live and work along a subway line, or less ideally, streetcar lines. Uber fills in the gaps.

Great to hear you can go without a car in SF I'm a 20 minute walk to work in Toronto with a large grocery store across the street from home. Basically everything can be done on foot. Add in a bike and a nice transit system and no-car is pretty easy here.

Are you in SF? Does $4k for a 1 bed+den seem to be in the ballpark?

Median 1 bed is $3500-3700. Median 2 bed is $4700-4900.

Rents can vary widely but I think $3000 is probably a more reasonable estimate. The transit estimates also seem too high - I spend almost nothing because I can walk to work and take a Lyft Line for $5 or a bus for $2.25 if I need to. Many people bike. Overall it would be fairly easy to only spend a few hundred a month on transit for many people if your apartment isn't too isolated.

You cannot get a 1BR+den for $3000 in SF. It'll be just over $4k since it'll be similar square footage to a 2BR but discounted for not having the proper second bedroom.

I pay less than $3000 actually and see similar listings

Taxes? Canadians jump very quickly into the highest tax brackets. Goods and Services are taxed in Ontario at... 14% now?

Perhaps surprisingly, that's mostly a wash.

Canadian federal tax is 33% over 200k USA is 33% over 189K

Ontario taxes 11.16% up to 500k California 9.3% up to 250k

... Ok so realistically 2% in taxes :). Maybe that's not a total wash.

But if we're looking at the break-even point it might hit $3k in California's favor

California's taxes are not straightforward. For example, my effective state tax rate is ~7.3% at $160k. It's a progressive tax, so calculations aren't as easy as slapping a generalized number.

If you're making $500k, it also isn't likely a high point of concern.

don't forget social security. Social security is 5.65%, whereas the equivalent in Canada is the Canadian Pension Plan, which is 4.95%. And you have great medical insurance built right in. [0]

[0] - http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0411/do-canadians...

And social security is owed up to the first ~$110K of income, whereas CPP is only owed on the first ~$50K of income.

That source includes savings due to the exchange rate, even though wages would be in CAD

Okay, I tried to graph out taxes between Toronto and SF.

check it out: https://github.com/bsurmanski/TorontoSFTax

It looks like between 60k-200k, taxes in Toronto are actually lower. Between 200k-700k, it is cheaper in SF. At 300k, Toronto tax is about 1.5% more, and at 400k, Toronto tax is about 2% more.

But being realistic, most people in tech would pay less tax in Toronto.

edit: This calculation also does not take into account any other taxes (such as sales tax, or property tax), and is not adjusted for cost of living. SF has an edge in sales tax (8.75% in SF vs 13% in Toronto), but Toronto has a huge edge in cost of living (according to [0], Toronto is 32% cheaper), and property tax (1.14% in SF vs 0.7% in Toronto).

[0] - https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/san-fra...

If you were moving to the US and were worried about cost of living, Seattle would be a great option. You'd probably spend 2k on an apartment there, making the math much more enticing to move.

wait wait wait -- you're able to find a decent apartment for $1k in Toronto? I was there and lived in a shithole for $1200 and that was 6 years ago.

> "I'm not convinced that taking a San Fran gig would necessarily feel like streets paved with gold and scooping up baskets of money"

It won't necessarily, but it may - one important distinction between the US tech hubs like SV or NYC is that while they offer a higher median salary, they top end of the envelope goes way, way higher than it does anywhere in Canada.

There is a class of jobs/positions that straight up do not exist in Canada where large numbers of engineers can make $400-500k, or even more.

An evaluation of whether or not it's worth moving needs to consider where you are in the market. If you're making $70k in Toronto right now and some company in the Bay Area is offering $100k, that's probably a tough deal. On the other hand, if you qualify for someone of the higher-end positions in the Bay Area, you can go from making $90k in Toronto to making $400k in the Valley. That's a pretty slam dunk deal.

I think if any city/region wants to be a future Silicon Valley (given the rents, why would you?), first focus on being the next Seattle/Austin/Portland. You can't beat NY in terms of having access to capital, but then NY (and LA) is its own world with its own dominant industry, so I'm not sure if it's comparable as to SAP in terms of "the next SV" talk. But you can do what those three cities have and have access to affordable (if increasing) housing, good business environments, and the standard of living that would draw in potential tech folks.

Maybe I should replace Portland with Boulder, in which case it'd be SAB. (Or with Denver but that's just SAD.)

Boulder Austin Denver Atlanta Seattle Salt-Lake?

Really stretching my US geography to get anything close to a decent acronym

I think Boulder/Denver should be regarded as one market. SLC is definitely hot for tech, but is it for startups? Atlanta I'm not too sure of.

I was just aiming for BADASS I am afraid.

Salt lake only came to mind thanks to salt stack. Atlanta - well, as I said, limited geo knowledge. Ironic really

Swap Boston in for Boulder, and you've got your acronym.

Waterloo is far better then Toronto in terms of startups and tech talent. Toronto is riding our coat tails :)

Worth mentioning that Waterloo has the world's largest startup incubator/accelerator (physical space wise) via Velocity.

and Sudbury has the world's largest nickel... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Nickel

It doesn't really follow that they're going to be more successful because of it. World's largest is a bit irrelevant in this case.

If only. The draw of SV on young Canadian talent is just too large. Some of the smartest people I know hail from that region and most of them ended up working in SV.

Sad, but it's not happening unless Canada will find a way to balance out the enormous difference in pay between working in Toronto (or any other major Canadian city) versus the Valley.

Would have to agree there. The salaries in Toronto are far, far lower than a comparable on the US West Coast. If you can get a public sector job at a university though, you might be laughing. Although, public sector jobs will suck the creativity right out of your veins like a vampire..

I almost spat my glass of wine out my nose when I read "Delightfully efficient transport"

The GTA has some of the worst sprawl and traffic problems in North America, and its transit system has been neglected since the 80s and the politicians are only starting to get their heads out of their asses on this in the last few years.

Seriously, the 401 is horrific. I've spent a great deal of time in all of the major Canadian cities(offices), and the traffic situation is the same. I don't know what the deal is with Canada, but they REALLY need to clean up their transit.

The Bay Area has no place to criticize anyplace else for bad transit infrastructure. Toronto's infrastructure has issues, but it beats most US cities.

Not sure I agree. Having spent plenty of time in the Bay Area for work I'd say that yes it's "transit" infrastructure is garbage on account of it being suburban sprawl. But Toronto's highway network is worse, and in reality the bulk of tech employment in Toronto is out in the suburban sprawl of Markham, etc. where the transit system does you no good.

There are more jobs now downtown than there was 10 years ago for sure, with companies like Amazon having moving in there. But the transit system itself has fallen on hard times. Taking the King streetcar is a disaster, the subway is highly unpleasant at peak hours, and in any case housing is unaffordable in the downtown core so many transit trips are an hour long. The system has aged.

The Eglinton Crosstown will make a huge difference for sure. Would have helped me a lot as I lived in one of the last affordable neighbouroods in Toronto (Oakwood & Vaughan). But my employment has moved to Waterloo, and I'm living rural now, and the quality of life is much better for me :-)

I hope Toronto can get its infrastructure issues sorted. But I don't think it compares well to the Bay Area. Or to NYC.

This article is poorly fact-checked:

"Queens College" is, I'm guessing, referring to Queen's University in Kingston (since the attendance number cited also matches), which is over 150 miles away from Toronto. I'm surprised the author didn't include the 25,000 students at McMaster and the 20,000 students at the University of Guelph which are both much closer than either Waterloo or Queen's. And if the author is going to include the University of Waterloo, why not also include Wilfrid Laurier University which is also in Waterloo? It is totally nonsensical. Kitchener-Waterloo is very distinct from Toronto and its various suburbs.

The support provided by the government does not begin to make up for the lack of support provided by local angel investors/VCs. It is much easier to go through the government grant process and get funding for a startup that way than it is to get Angel or VC money in Toronto.

BlackBerry has been dying a slow death for over 4 years at this point. Whatever talent they once had has (hopefully, for their sake) long since moved on. If the author's claims of a diaspora injecting additional talent into the local startup scene are true, we should already be seeing it. I don't.

Shopify's HQ is in Ottawa. They are sucking up a lot of the local CS talent in Ottawa since they are a big fish in a small pond. They aren't going to move their HQ ~200 miles to Toronto any time soon, even if it means avoiding -40 degree winters.

> even if it means avoiding -40 degree winters.

Oh come on, winter in Ottawa isn't that bad. I can't recall many days that were below -30 when I was living there.

Although I hear Toronto barely has snow in the winter time, must be heaven not to have to shovel your driveway.

Oh, come on. I had to shovel my driveway at least twice this past winter.

(I was able to bike to work throughout most of the winter, even if some of the rides were abbreviated because I can use the GO train as well.)

It mentions Waterloo because it's one of the best EE/CS schools in the world.

> And if the author is going to include the University of Waterloo, why not also include Wilfrid Laurier University which is also in Waterloo?

Laurier does not have an engineering department (they gave it up in exchange for UWaterloo promising not to offer business degrees).

Who is going to move to Toronto to join the tech scene? If given the choice who is going to choose Toronto over Bay Area or Seattle?

Without it having a massive draw it won't even register compared to Bay Area or even Seattle.

Waterloo and Toronto alumni, presumably.

No a lot of us are either staying here and working remotely for companies stateside or we are moving to the states altogether. This is especially true of Waterloo. Most of the Waterloo devs I know, and they are really good mind you, are either in Seattle or Bay Area working for one of the Big 4. To stay competitive, Toronto will have to reel these individuals in and I don't believe there's sufficient incentive to accomplish that right now. See this[1] for instance.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/2d7818/w...

Most the talent gets drawn to Silicon Valley, from what I've seen.

People without US citizenship/residency?

If someone made me choose between the Bay Area and Toronto, I would pick Toronto. Every day of the week. Toronto's great.

Sure, it's like the planet Hoth for a third of the year. But in every other way it's a more liveable city. The public transport in the core of the city exists and works, rather than being a cobbled-together mishmash of uncoordinated systems of which 2 out of 3 seem to be broken at any time.

The rent is a shit ton cheaper, the people are much nicer, the food is more varied, the city is gorgeous in summer, it's big enough to have serious amenities, small enough to be walkable and the people who look like lumberjacks probably are.

I live in NYC, because I prefer it to SF as well. As an Australian citizen I find it significantly easier to work in the USA than in Canada. But if Toronto's scene were on a rough scale with NYC's and if the immigration thing could be sorted, I'd be tempted to move.

>and the people who look like lumberjacks probably are.

As someone who grew up in a forestry town in Northern Ontario...Toronto is a world away, and much more similar to the Bay Area than where I grew up.

Oh, for sure.

But there's Brooklyn hipsters, and SF hipsters, and Toronto hipsters, and then there are actual forestry workers who come into town.

No they don't. Toronto is two plane rides away for them.

What is harder about Canadian immigration? I'd always had the impression the U.S. made things more difficult.

I'm Australian. We have a special visa, the E3, which is very easy to get.

Meanwhile almost everyone else is stuck in the H1B shitshow, which has in the past 5 years grown from merely "terrible" to "nuclear-powered self-propelling toxic thunderblob".

I've been curious if the US has a reciprocal visa with Australia? I'm a USian who has a deep affection for Melbourne.

Don't think so, the Americans gave the Aussies the E3 as quid pro quo for fighting with us in Iraq; it's not a bi-directional agreement.

I am not a lawyer, but I think the 457 visa fills a role similar to the H1B or E3. You need to coming in for a job on the "Skilled Occupations List"[1], which currently includes various job titles related to software development.

[0] https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1/457-

[1] https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Work/Work/Skills-assessment-a...

No, but the 457 is easy and you may also have independent skilled migration options to get PR without job sponsorship. Let me know if you need help.

Does the E3 still have the "if you lose your job you have 2 weeks to leave the country" clause on it?

It had me on edge the whole time I was in the States (which funnily enough prompted me to find a job in Toronto).

Yes, but with the job market the way it is, it's not too risky.

Here's how it would play out if I left my job.

I'd fly to Toronto on Canada's visa waiver, wait there until the E3 expired.

Fly back to NYC on the USA's visa waiver program. This gives me 90 days to find an employer who will sponsor an E3.

Fly back to Toronto to get the E3 done.

Fly back to NYC to start the job.

It'd be a silly shuffle of about a month, and more disruptive and expensive than it would be for someone holding a green card or citizenship. But in no sense would it be a game-over disaster.

If you entered the US on a VWP, and try to reenter the US on the VWP without going further than Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean, you may find yourself denied entry.

I'm not sure if this applies if you were on a different class of visa before attempting to reenter the US using the VWP. I think the US border agents would be very suspicious though.

I've entered the US about 15 times since my E3 expired, and i'd say i've been specifically questioned about my E3 on 8 or 9 of those occasions. "You used to work in America? What's the name of your current employer? Are you looking for a job at the moment? You know you can't work in the US any more, right?" Stuff like that.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll amend my plan to include flying back to Perth.

To be clear, I haven't had to deal with E3 related issues for 7 or 8 years and the subtle details of it have probably changed. Hopefully you never find yourself in a position where your E3 becomes invalid unexpectedly but if so, speak to a lawyer to find out the current gotchas and how US Immigration interprets the laws. (Or look at http://www.expatforum.com/expats/america-expat-forum-expats-... - it tends to be an excellent source of typically up to date information.)

Pro-tip for Australian's living in North America (or anyone crossing the Pacific, really): Qantas/OneWorld (and maybe other airlines) typically doesn't charge one penny extra if your North America <-> Australia route includes a stop in Hawaii. Hit up hotwire.com and find a cheap hotel in Waikiki and it's the absolute perfect way to break up a 14+ hour flight.

My parents are in Perth, so Emirates via Dubai is a slightly better option. Emirates are typically cheaper and their stock is nicer. Plus each of the legs is shorter than the trans-Pacific marathon.

Mind you, living and flying in the US brought an unexpected phrase to my lips: "I miss Qantas".

> if you lose your job you have 2 weeks to leave the country

If it's like the TN then no, because it is not 2 weeks to the leave the country it's "leave the country".

"If someone made me choose between the Bay Area and Toronto, I would pick Toronto"

The thing is that for most people this wouldn't be the candidates. Toronto is probably a third tier city for startups, meaning there are more candidates and factors to consider.

>and the people who look like lumberjacks probably are

No, they are the same hipster dufus people as in Portland. There are no lumberjacks in Toronto.

speaking as someone who has lived in both the Bay area and Toronto, I think Toronto has a chance.

The Bay area is a nice place to work in your 20s, but it's not a good place to settle down. With housing prices, homeless population, just a general grime over most things.

Toronto's the type of city you can move to when you thinking of settling down and starting a family. Very clean and friendly. Cheap enough to afford. That and not every Canadian wants to get a visa and live 4000km from everyone they've ever known.

I would. It is so expensive here...

If you think buying a house in the Bay Area is crazy, getting ready for the speculative madness of Toronto.

I did. Toronto is a great city. I've traveled a good deal in Canada, and the US, and while I can't compare it to cities outside of those two, I will say that I still consider the best city I've ever experienced.

While the tech scene isn't as hot as the other regions you mentioned, it's still strong. Very strong. It's also starting to be noticed by the bigger players (with Google and Apple both investing in the region). Currently I'd say the biggest weakness for tech in Toronto is the financing side, with the traditional financiers being very focused on revenue and getting cash flow positive early in a company's cycle (a very Canadian, risk averse business culture), as opposed to the riskier but higher reward models favoured in the valley. But the greatest strength is easy to spot: the city itself.

It would be easy to argue that Toronto is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. The standard of living and quality of life are very high, and widely recognized by publications such as The Economist. The diversity in the city isn't just surface deep either: Toronto boasts one of the most diverse economies for a large city in North America. The strong tech industry sits aside a very strong finance industry, media industry (tons of television shows and movies are produced in Toronto), fashion industry and others. The way I like to explain it to people is that Toronto is not the best at anything -- but it is among the best in almost everything.

So there's lots of work. The other ingredient is that there is also lots to do. The strong cosmopolitan nature of the city means a dizzying array of options for dining. Those options are not just the affordable "ethnic food" you typically think of, but run the full gamut from affordable and delicious to some of North America's best fine dining. To that you can add world class museums, excellent (if under built) transit, many interesting bars and cafes, housing that's quite affordable compared to the bay area (I own a townhouse close to the city centre), hot summers and reasonably mild winters, government provided universal health care, and so on and so on.

So yes, people definitely do move here to join the tech scene, but not people whose ONLY consideration is the work they do everyday. That's an important consideration -- perhaps THE most important consideration when looking for a place to live, but it should not be your only consideration. Once you start to add in the other factors Toronto looks fantastic.

How difficult is it for a U.S. citizen to relocate and start working there? Healthcare is only for Canadians, correct?

If you have a job offer, my impression is that it's fairly straightforward to get Canadian residency.

Government-funded healthcare (OHIP in Ontario) is extended to all residents. There is a three-month waiting period for it to kick in unless you are in one of several special groups, which you probably wouldn't be.

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/publications/ohip/ohip... http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ohip/ohipfaq_...

No, we'd keep you healthy if you showed up... I lived abroad for 5 years and bought 3 months of blue cross (medical insurance) when I got back, then I was straight back onto the taxpayers' dime.

(Which, to be fair, I'm one of)

Healthcare is for legal taxpayers. When I immigrated (18 years ago; I’m not sure I’d qualify now, but that’s because of shifting priorities in job needs) it took three months of being uninsured and my PR papers to get my OHIP card that I’ve had since.

Anyone who's been working legally for 3 months is eligible for healthcare.

I do love Canada, but New York City has nearly all of those same positives which you list (other than universal health care), to an even greater extent. And you can get bay-area level salaries there (as opposed to Toronto, where your salary is half what it would be in the bay area)

I spent a good deal of time in New York when I was younger -- in Manhattan working for an investment bank in technology. I didn't really explore the other boroughs much, but I did stay in the city for an extended period of time (~6 months in one go). I've also spent a good deal of time in the bay area (San Francisco), so the point where I spent more than half of my time there as opposed to here in Toronto. All of that is to say, I'm making a very conscious comparison between the options.

As far as New York goes, I'd argue it's less liveable than Toronto (or at least it was nearly 10 years go). It's much, much more expensive, much busier (obviously), and probably has the best amenities of any big city anywhere in the world. That being said, I'd also argue that it's less cosmopolitan than Toronto. New York is among the most cosmopolitan cities in the world of course, but I think Toronto beats it. I could be convinced otherwise, but in my experience Toronto is simply the best with respect to diversity, interesting people interacting and getting along, and being a fantastic mix of cultures from literally all over the globe.

Then there's the expense -- the likelihood of me being able to own a 3 bedroom house in Manhattan doing what I currently do is zero. It just isn't happening. In Toronto I live only about 3km from the financial district, and I can get to my office in an Uber in under 10 minutes. I'm at an age where I'm starting a family, and I live in a very family friendly urban area -- there's even an elementary school on my street.

And yes, bay area level salaries are hard to come by here -- I was earning one when the exchange rate was closer to parity a few years back, and subsequent pay adjustments have not kept up with the weakness of the Canadian dollar since the collapse of the oil market. The salaries are lower, but they're nowhere near half. And that's fine, as I'm still paid very well, and my standard of living is unobtainable in New York or San Francisco without earning substantially above market rates in either market.

> I could be convinced otherwise, but in my experience Toronto is simply the best with respect to diversity, interesting people interacting and getting along, and being a fantastic mix of cultures from literally all over the globe.

> I didn't really explore the other boroughs much

Maybe that's why you think that :-)

How did you manage to afford a 3 bedroom house 3km from the financial district in Toronto on an engineer's salary? Did you buy a long time ago?

I'm incredibly envious because I can't imagine affording that kind of real estate on a Toronto developer's salary without making some serious retirement savings/lifestyle sacrifices.

A couple of factors -- I'm not a recently out of school grad, I got my first job working as an engineer at a startup at 17, and worked at some other startups while in school (full time, not co-op), so I've got at least 12 years of experience (not including some of those early jobs) spread between a handful of startups and some much bigger organizations. I'm technically not just an engineer -- I also have some management duties at work. I also have a spouse who works full time, but earns significantly less working in a finance related role. This is a big factor WRT to take home pay -- marginal tax rates are a killer, and a second income puts that income in much lower tax brackets.

When it was time to look (mid 2014), we were pre-approved for an irresponsible amount (very low debt load, don't own a car, etc), took that number and cut a few hundred thousand off, and went looking for somewhere where we could put more than 10% down. When it came time to do the mortgage, which was admittedly handled by a family friend, they arranged to float a top up to 20% to skip CMHC fees (we end up paying the bank a few thousand in interest, but save tens of thousands we would've had to pay in mortgage insurance). All said and done, the mortgage plus other financing costs us about the same as a nice studio apartment in San Francisco. In about 3 years we'll have the extra financing paid off, and our mortgage will cost us less than sharing an apartment in SF.

As far as lifestyle/savings goes, not really. My wife has always been a great saver, plus while her current gig is a bit stodgy it does come with some old fashioned benefits (like a DB pension along with a DC pension on top). We go on frequent trips, enjoy dinner around the city on a regular basis, and other things.

edit: I'd also like to add that you have to be picky, and be picky about the right things. Our place had some cosmetic damage and beat up appliances included (cheap things to fix, relative to the price of a house). We only paid a bit more than $100k extra for a 3 bedroom freehold townhouse (no condo fees, we own the actual land and building) compared to a 2 bedroom stacked townhouse that was literally half the square footage and came with a $400 monthly condo fee in the same neighbourhood. That was a new build, while ours was from 2009, about 5 years old at the time. Several of the other units in the complex have sold since we moved in, at hundreds of thousands over what we paid for our unit just 2 years ago. It feels like the market was discounting some easily fixed issues with appearance at a huge premium over the actual cost of the repairs and new appliances. The listing online was also DREADFUL. It really looked terrible in the online photos compared to an in-person viewing.

Yeah, I'm in NYC, having lived also in Toronto and SF before. No way I'd choose Toronto over NYC - larger tech scene (both BigCo and startups), diverse economy, working transit, huge cultural hub (many times greater than Toronto), and tremendous food scene (again, many times greater than TO).

Having recently taken a poke around the Toronto tech market, "half" salary in Toronto is being generous. Where I'm at right now (~SDE3 in most companies) the pay in Toronto is 1/3 to 1/4 what you can get in the Bay Area or NYC.

I doubt New York has a better food scene than Toronto

I don't have the data to measure this definitively across all price points, but as for the high end, New York City has 76 Michelin Star restaurants for 2016, while Toronto has 5.

Are you an American or a Canadian? As an American, every time I talk to a Canadian company they assume there must be something wrong with me. They don't understand why anybody would choose the cold and less pay over someplace like SF.

I'm Canadian, so obviously there's some inherent bias. Part of it is the annoyance of visa, permanent resident, and citizenship shenanigans necessary to get into the US (TN visas are non-residency track).

Part of it is cultural -- I feel like people are friendlier here in general (although the difference isn't so great in the bay area), even in the bigger cities.

Part of it is really hard to describe -- there's just something that feels grimy about American cities in general. By comparison virtually every Canadian city I've been in feels much cleaner than every american city I've been in. San Francisco and New York can feel particularly bad -- I never smell human urine walking down the street in Toronto, but it's a regular occurrence for me in San Francisco.

Then there's the homeless situation. Toronto is by no means free of homeless people, but the problem seems to exist on a completely different scale than it does in San Francisco or New York. It really makes a big difference in how you experience a city, for me at least.

The company I’m a development manager at wouldn’t look at you funny, partially because I’m an immigrant from America and completely agree with you (I do not want to work in America, and would leave any company that decided to move all of its jobs there).

After being in the Bay Area for the past 7 years, I'm moving back to Toronto next week. Can't wait.

Congrats! What convinced you to go back?

I loved living in Toronto, it's a great city. Like any city, it has its problems, but it feels like a healthy city. There's good transit, it's reasonably affordable[0], there is great diversity, there is tech but there is also everything else.

Living around SF, the problems don't feel like they're being treated, but rather covered up with more and more money. It feels dysfunctional on too many levels (many of these problems are not at the municipal level). At this point, I can't afford to live anywhere near the SF core (and I'm not sure I'd want to if I could) while maintaining the lifestyle that is important to me. Living on the outskirts has taken a big toll on my happiness over the years, and it's a good time for us to move for a multitude of other reasons of varying importance (political, cultural, financial, social, etc).

I hope Toronto becomes an even more important player in tech, but it's in a great position even as it is.

[0] People constantly debate that Toronto is overpriced because prices keep going up, but it's still very cheap compared to most other cities in the world of similar calibre.

Visa's a way more friendly and straight forward for Canada than the US. We'd love to move to the US but life's too short for the visa process, my wife and I are both PhDs, electrical engineers (4 years automotive and 5 start up experience) and I genuinely can't see a sensible route in to the US, Canada looks pretty straight forward though.

People who can't get visas to the US

One earthquake could change that overnight. If they're betting on that eventually, they just need to stay lined up in the #2 slot.

I did, although eighteen years ago, and originally not for the tech scene as for love. But I am constantly telling recruiters who reach out to me that I have less than zero interest in working in the U.S., and more or less zero interest in working anywhere but Toronto.

We may not be the “best” tech scene in North America (but I am currently running what I consider to be an amazing Rails-first team), but I can’t imagine wanting to live elsewhere permanently.

Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo are both healthy, vibrant startup hubs, but are distinct regions IMO. They are 120km apart and it takes ~90min to drive from Communitech to MARS https://goo.gl/maps/vRJqc7JsNcp.

Both positively influence each other, compete for resources. Waterloo has some more affordable suburban housing, and less vibrant city/'downtown'. Toronto is more expensive, is bigger and better in many respects.

Vancouver and Montreal are also decent startup ecosystems. I've been writing a researching Canadian cities/startup ecosystems for a book. Lots of stats and resources here if you're really into this topic: https://github.com/DeBraid/ham-innov-essay

There's also Victoria BC. A smaller city, but that makes the tech and startup scene more important locally: by some measures, tech is now the biggest "industry" in the area, beating tourism. Plus, it's got the best weather in Canada.

My money is on Canada!

Look, our culture, the geo-political environment, the general tolerance level of an average Canadian, all of these play a factor and when given a choice, people would easily Canada as their home base.

This is where you want to start a family and grow your kids. The tech scene has always been miniature compared to SF or NYC, but the high caliber of talent and expertise is the same if not greater than those cities.

The more reports like this come out, I believe the more of the current Canadian Diaspora living and working in the US will be swayed to move back here, bringing their talent, their money and their valley connections with them.

This country is already winning with it's social policies and adopting multiculturalism, anything else is really icing on the cake. The tech sector picking up is icing on the cake. Choosing to live here is a no-brainer for anyone given the choice.

Too bad it's so cold.

No colder than Chicago or New York, and on most days, it's no hotter or colder than the Bay Area. really.

I strongly disagree. I grew up in Toronto. Moved to New Jersey at 17, San Francisco at 21 and NYC four years ago at age 32.

Toronto's weather is definitely the worst of the four, no question.

Those places must have great weather, because Toronto is mostly sun and climate is moderated by the lake

2 years ago we had the polar vortex where the groundwater froze and when it cracked sounded like someone kicking tour front door open.

I doubt there was a polar vortex in the bay area.

That's just a good storm. The normal day-to-day weather is very nice and usually sunny. Of course we have winter, but it is mild with the occasional extreme storm. I guess it just depends on how much you like the cold.

Vancouver isn't.

Are you posting from the Canadian Tourist Bureau?

I have two main concerns when considering a startup: access to talent and access to capital. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, Toronto falls short on both. Multiculturalism barely factors into it -- and if it did why would I pick Toronto over NYC?

Multiculturalism and the political scene is what keeps your employees happy to live in the city.

regarding access to capital, two things; 1) We have access to NYC and Chicago VC's, easily. If you slightly push your startup in the media (blogs, newspapers) it almost guarantees a call from interested US VC's within a 1hr flight.

2) Where we lack the competitive VC environment, we make up for it with Federal and Municipal programs. Incentives to hire top talent, compensation for hiring new graduates, grans for office space or R & D.

Canada rocks. more people are starting to realize this.

The other reality is, older generations, our parents or their age group, were never as globally competitive as we have the potential to be. They were happy with just having a customer base thats local, if lucky, nation wide.

But no, this new generation is fierce and competitive. We don't want to just dominate in Canada where we have home advantage, we want to compete globally. The rise of the tech startups out of the Toronto region is just a great example of that upward trend. it's just going to get better and better where as SF seems to have peaked.

> The more reports like this come out, I believe the more of the current Canadian Diaspora living and working in the US will be swayed to move back here, bringing their talent, their money and their valley connections with them.

ha, no. I want to come home at some point, but the money in the US is absurdly better. Plus I can work on some very neat stuff.

All of that is awesome but unless salaries match US ones and there's investors like there are in the Bay Area, nothing will change.

Ontario is not winning anything, it is circling the toilet economically, with a government hell bent on making things much worse. There is no chance any significant number of people or companies will come back to Toronto to make less money because you think "we're progressive" is a selling point. So is San Francisco, and you can get paid there.

>This country is already winning with it's social policies and adopting multiculturalism

The current trend is towards more and more people opposing those policies. Ontario, Alberta, and the federal government being hyper progressive all at the same time is resulting in a significant push back towards traditional values and people are rediscovering their Canadian heritage.

The main complaint I have heard from Toronto entrepreneurs is the difficulty of raising capital. You pretty much have to get on a plane to raise a series A, apparently.

and you have to do that once... big deal.

Canada has lost engineering talent to the US for 149 years...

In the old days (pre WW2) you just hopped in a car and moved down. Well over a 1 million Canadian born people live in the states including about 70,000 illegals..

That said there are about 200,000 immigrants coming to Canada per year many who have stem backgrounds. Quebec has an open immigration policy for French programmers moving to Quebec. And for all those of you comparing salaries - low salaries are generally good for startups..

WEF ranks canada 4 in the world for human talent http://reports.weforum.org/human-capital-report-2015/report-...

Depends on the salaries they offer, doesn't it?

I don't know how to upvote this subject enough. All these places wanting to compete with Silicon Valley do not compete on the salary they are willing to pay software development.

London has this problem. I'm sure anthropologists could study it and say it has something to do with where software engineers sit in the pack hierarchy in each community. Whatever it impacts the ability of businesses to execute.

I agree with the article, it really does feel like something special is happening in the city. I work at TWG, a software dev agency in Toronto and we've worked closely with many of these startups and are pretty well connected to the startup culture. Happy to answer any questions you might have about our local scene!

Toronto is indeed up and coming like every major city, as tech continues to become more essential and dominant. My company, Fiix (www.fiix.io), is an example of a company based out of Toronto, that actually just got backed by YC. Ideally we'd love to stay in Toronto, but the valley continually entices us and a lot of startups to eventually transition there because of their abundance of top talent. The main reason we are in Toronto is because our current market consists of only Torontonians. As we look to expand our services, staying in Toronto might become very difficult. I think once Toronto has a huge surplus of tech talent, then it will be very interesting... Maybe a first mover advantage works in the valley's favor here ;)

Toronto can't even handle getting the current population on time to work. Their highway congestion is horrendous. I can't imagine it transitioning to a major tech startup center.

The article mentions government grants, does anyone know of a small software shop that has been able to get one? We looked into it at one point and its next to impossible. Our advisor told us we had to modify the product in weird ways to maybe get a grant some years later. In other words getting a grant was nice for the media outlets to report but in reality impossible for a small startup...

How many times have we heard that City X has poised to become "next tech capital" ? Austin, San Antonio, London and which not.

Building a specialization is far more complex. It might seem unrelated but I think the SF's historical openness for all sort of "weird" people have played a big role in its emergence as Tech capital. It would take years for nay city to beat it.

About 6 months back - we and five other startups were invited by federal government with a pitch that operate in canada & win North American market. They toured us to almost every happening startup place in the city of Toronto, Montreal and Waterloo. Only thing that we couldn't do because of our tight schedule was meet the talent and figure out for ourselves.

Doing an employee transfer to Canada is like playing a lotterey.

My past employers had documents returned to them 4 times in a row for: 1. assumed type (s vs z); 2. unclear signature; 3. ESDC called them, but they missed the call; 4. person's passport was about to expire. The regulations never mentioned anything about this.

I'd love to see some comments on what it's like raising money in Toronto. Is there a local investor ecosystem? Do companies raise a series A led by a Toronto firm? Do they fly to NYC or SF and hope to find investors who don't want them to move?

They mention KIK as a Toronto company. Isn't KIK in Waterloo ninety miles away? That is a pretty elastic definition of greater Toronto isn't it?

Yep Kik is in Waterloo, and Waterloo is actually 70 miles away.

I've lived in both cities and I have never heard anyone refer to Waterloo being in the GTA. They are both very distinct cities, and even on good days it takes about 90 minutes to drive between them, and it is even worse during rush hour.

California is really unliveable if Toronto is able to keep and capture talent now. Honestly it has to be really bad living in Silicon Valley at this point.

Isn't Toronto very similar to NY, except with worse traffic?

I can't count the number of times I've seen the "[INSERT CITY NAME HERE] is poised to become the new Silicon Valley!" headline.

I moved to Victoria, BC from the states. There is zero chance anything in Canada can compete with SF for quite some time until a few things change.

I actually get asked this question quite a bit being here. I have many long and drawn out thoughts having lived in SF and now Victoria, but I'll try to condense them.

First, if any place in Canada will start a tech boom, it isn't Toronto. It's not Vancouver. It's Victoria. Why? Victoria is close to SF, where the VC money is. The life and cost of living in Victoria is dramatically better than either Toronto (high cost, terrible weather) or Vancouver (high cost). And tech is already one of the bigger industries in Victoria. Victoria has the added bonus of already having a vibrant start-up scene, albeit mostly local and under 20 people and on the very young side.

Second, even with the above, Victoria (which I consider the most likely, so that means even less for other cities) is highly unlikely to get any major traction for a few reasons.

1. Canada is very conservative with money. Canadian banks, angels and VCs are all pretty conservative. They are not like SF VCs and do not want to make 10 bets to get one win. Canadian startups typically have to bootstrap well beyond what any in the states would ever have to do. Sometimes this is ok, but for the most part it shows that Canadian startup scene doesn't quite understand risk and reward well. And, the majority of VCs are still out east in Canada, though they are even worse in this regard because they simply don't get the modern internet. In Toronto the tech industry was telephony and devices and it seems that most of the VCs are so old school they still think this way. Canadian VCs need to modernize their thinking quickly.

2. SF VCs are not forward thinkers. At all. SF VCs continually say to Canadian companies "you need to move to SF", which of course in 2016 is complete and utter bullshit. Most VCs are actually not inventive or progressive. Instead, they are followers of a few stronger VCs. And by a few, I mean a tiny minority. Being followers, they have playbooks and patterns they follow. It's basically scripts. SF based VCs want to invest in SF based companies. This is a 1990s model that doesn't matter in 2016 and, much like Canadian VCs, SF VCs need to update their thinking and look beyond this. They might not feel they have to because there are so many people willing to live and work in SF, but SF based VCs, the progressive ones, look for good ideas and good teams. Location is not important. SF based VCs should adapt to the brave new world and expand from a single geo.

3. Salaries. Canadian salaries in tech are low. So low that many that live close to the states and are young would simply move to the states. Now, this sometimes works out, sometimes it doesn't. It works in places like Toronto and Vancouver when the cost of living is awful (worse than SF when you factor in housing with salary, IMO). It doesn't work when it's places like Victoria (at the moment). This could actually change if salaries go up, ironically, though it's unlikely for quite some time.

4. Cargo Culture. Most techies in Victoria view SF as the mecca of tech. I mean, it is, but not the way they idolize it. Smart and stupid have no geo lock and many in Victoria/Canada have a bit of a complex when SF comes up. Canadians need to stop looking at SF for inspiration and instead build the local community up, make it a vibrant scene of their own and own it all. Forget what SF is doing. Don't chase trends and build things of value.

great summary. two things to add: 1) with commodities prices falling, some less risk adverse canadian investors(read mining) might change the situation with vcs, and 2) silicon valley would be way to big for canada, canada only needs about 10% of it

I bet $500 USD it doesn't become bigger than the bay area in the next 10 years.

Good. The last thing needed here is a town full of jackasses creating the next unicorns.

Toronto actually recently passed Chicago in population.

The deafening silence of polite Canadians up in here. I love it in Toronto. YC:HN has taught me a lot so I hope you allow me to share the reasons why Toronto is a phenomenal city in which to be a Hacker.

I've been a sysadmin for 16 years. My experience, is that Toronto is extremely liberal and militantly tolerant. A bigoted insult upon someone on public transit or in the streets will not go without being criticized by the public. Even if you cast it in french.

We are proud of welcoming and integrating people.

https://nulogy.com/who-we-are/careers/ - Here are my company's core values. I think they're uniquely Canadian, in a way. Empathy is pretty much #1. Our HQ is downtown. I've never been happier and further from burnout as the ops manager at this gig.

Check out our local music scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IWZWo6IByM#t=53m44s techno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPZvNqNFaU8#t=50s hip hop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uev2J_cBHjQ rock

Lots of people want to live here, evident by rising rents :(.

The OP highlights an up and coming tech sector.

Kitchener-Waterloo (KW)... Yeah... The University of Waterloo has a great funnel system for cooperative intern students in Ontario. They put a lot of effort towards a kind of Mittelstand model. I'm nonplussed. Better self taught hackers are drawn to the urban core after failing out of post secondary.

RIM was a thing, once. Now it's a joke. I heard someone throw shade about RIM's big brother nature the other day.

I've coded puppet & chef for over 200+ startups. Startups are huge here and the culture is very social and enjoyable! Meetups are big! I regularly run into other new hackers in unrelated social settings. It's fun that way.

Uber is big. Dispensaries are big. Nightclubs are great. You can get food of any origin.

Cycling is huge here. Incorporating cycling into your transportation means living downtown is affordable, if you plan.

OH! Speaking of incorporating, in a business sense, it's trivial. You can do it in 30 minutes at city hall.

Toronto, in my experience, has been the most exciting, happy and loving city to call home. I'm truly in love with this city. It's safe, fun and full of opportunity. I love walking down the street and hearing eighteen different languages in one hour. I love seeing any world famous artists who would drop by Canada.

Anybody who's seriously interested in the Toronto scene should drop by http://techmasters.chat/ and talk to us. The tech scene is on fire here! It's so exciting! ...and very welcoming!

Seconded on risk aversion. Toronto is just not sexy. When you go to pitch a client in a top tier city and you are from one, the client assumes that if you can survive in SF/NY/DC/LON etc, that they should hear you out.

In Toronto, it's like you can't type 'hello world," without some cringeworthy reporter going on about how it's by a sparky _canadian_ startup taking on the big bad world with their local blend of quirky charm and _moxie_.

I'm sure that's warm and fuzzy to people who live on grant money, but to the rest of the world it means "derivative and subsidized."

Toronto is a good place for dev shops, but innovation needs to be in places where it is valued by people who actually pay for it. If you are doing enterprise dev, it's great.

But nobody here is going to Mars, except maybe a scrappy group of girl engineers who take no guff, and are writing codes with a critical take on whether colonizing other planets is problematic in the face of our own colonial history and need for healing and reparations...

I'm not sure what happened in that last paragraph, can you elaborate?

What precisely could benefit from clarification?

You're obviously referring to something very specific, while being vague enough that people that are not 'in' on it don't understand.

That's gonna be quite a feat with absurd real estate prices, a weak dollar, and lower salaries than the US even before you take into account the weak dollar.

I thought that was supposed to be Austin? Silicone valley of the prairie or something.

This kind of thing is said all the time of different places :)

I still haven't seen any of the places that are described as being the "next Silicon Valley" actually become a huge tech hub organically.

>Silicone valley

San Fernando?

This term is actually already in use by others including DFW

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Prairie

20 bucks says it won't.

20 USD or 20 CAD?

Bullshit.

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