Hacker News Reader

Comment by clutchski | Hacker News Reader

"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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com