Montreal Is Leading the AI World Takeover
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It may not be the "Silicon Valley of AI" but the point is they are a hotbed.
I would recommend it if you have an interest. People are very friendly, tons of good restaurants, night life, and culture. You get a bit of European flavor without leaving the continent. It is advisable to commit to a crash course in French. Yes a lot of people speak english but for a variety of reasons it makes a big difference in what you'll get out of being an expat.
Let's hope that Montreal can capture the value added by their public investment to re-invest back into schools and also that they can keep a lid on land prices / banker parasitic behaviour which has clearly blighted California.
I'd also agree on learning French, I'm not fluent and it pisses me off. Back to Anki.
You could also find a firm willing to hire you but there will be paperwork and they'll have to prove that they haven't found a Canadian citizen for the position you'll occupy. It's a bit of a pain for the company but some companies are used to this (consulting firms mostly). You'll then have a 2 years VISA + working permit.
Or you can go the permanent resident way, from France, but it's gonna take a long time (often 3+ years).
My advice is to come here as a tourist for a few weeks to have a feeling of the city. Try to come in winter, as it's a bit harsh and a non negligible number of expats go back to their home countries after their first winter here. Other than that, it's a really beautiful place and I love living there (been almost 5 years now).
Hope it's helpful!
(Born and raised in Montreal)
Sometimes when I say poutine people think I'm meaning prostitute so I can definitely use the help :).
However, the government seems to to the major 'driving' force behind this, just like they are doing with the Video Game industry in the Province, with big subsidies, tax breaks which 'artificially' boosts local studios.
Now the future will tell if the artificial injection will create a lasting, self-sustaining tech hub, or will simply evaporate in the next elections (if a different government decides to cut the Business friendly regulations). But if we take the historic example of the local video game studios (there are a TON of studios around town!), there is a big potential for Montreal to become an important AI center.
Ex-Gamedev (and Montrealer) ...
Also here the govt is selecting the kind of jobs via tax breaks. The USA has tax breaks for Facebook/Amazon and many others, but it's not targeted it's just a catch-all rule of big companies paying no tax.
The state in any country creates the environment in which business lives. The idea that the USA is some kind of "natural" environment for business and everything else is synthetic is not something I can agree with.
There's a lot of talent in Montreal and great technology has been developed there.
There's a lot more entrepreneurs than many assume from their daily interactions.
Example:
The worlds first visual word processor was developed in Montreal by Stephen Dorsey - well before Gates, Jobs and Woz.
He then went on to develop real time fax over IP in the late 80s / early 90s and owns the patent on t38.
Steve and his company are still active, developing communications tech that's used worldwide.
This is just one example of many I've unexpectedly encountered doing business in the area.
Never say never :)
This, the first sentence of the article, does not express a thought. Read it carefully. It's on a par with "More people have been to Russia than I have."
If you make the (ridiculous) assumption that, at any given time, there is exactly one technology that is shaping 5he world more than it ever did before, then the sentence becomes intelligible. Of course, that's not what they meant...
The rest is wishful thinking. Building an industry isn't just top down (all the braggy stuff was about top down), the bottom up stuff is critical and important.
Good luck with it. But I feel like while the research might be OK, the commercialization will come out of the bay area anyways. There just isn't enough quality people to do this in Canada.
> There just isn't enough quality people to do this in Canada.
Do you really believe that would be the cause?
The jury is still out on whether one comes before the other or vise versa.
Big Everything is important, but without the new techniques for deep nets, AI would not be so sexy right now.
'AI' has always been around, but the 'big leap' we've seen recently is entirely due to researchers finally able to make Neural Nets actually work :).
'Deep Learning' really refers to a specific kind of Neural Network.
The first application was image recognition. It's also used a lot now in voice recognition - and they're trying to jam it into everything possible.
I think it's basically fair to say that at least in 2016 AI pretty much boils down to Deep Learning / Neural Nets to move something more classical along in terms of capability.
What 'AI' means changes over time, but I think it's safe to say the renewal and hype is based on the 'big eureka' in Neural Nets and their relevant applications.
No.
But lots of progress in pattern recognition & classification. So whatever AI exists can see better, hear better, speak better.
Unfortunately nothing remotely approaching the intelligence of a cat or dog, much less a human being, has appeared except in very limited domains.
nothing remotely approaching the intelligence of a cat or
dog, much less a human being, has appeared except in very
limited domains.
If, instead, you want to know when or if AI will match human intelligence or become self-consciuos - sadly no one knows that. We may be "advancing" in totally wrong direction.
The number of AI researchers in the Bay area might be even larger. Many researchers associated with large companies publish papers at a rate comparable to academics. Boston, Redmond, and Beijing are some other contenders.
Edit: Researchers in large company and institutions are not 'independent' so not included in their quote above. So yes, technically the article could be right, but it should not matter much whether the researchers work as part of an institution as long as their work is publicly published.
So, in a way, it has a 'geography' advantage to such numbers :).
That said, I'm highly doubtful that they will be able to effectively leverage the knowledge.
Bombardier etc. are slow, monolithic entities, who will no doubt take AI up, but I wonder how effectively and profitably for local entities.
Air Canada is an airline operator - much like Verizon etc. - they 'operate' they don't 'innovate'.
On the startup side, Montreal is weak - no as bad as other places unknown for startups (say, Houston?), but it does not have the 'acquiring entities' to take up the funnel. Toronto has this disadvantage as well, but because it's bigger, English, and a little more well-known, I think it's less of a problem.
The language issue cannot be overlooked - a little less than 1/2 of Montreal is primarily English speaking, and though basically every Francophone speaks English, it does affect how networks are oriented. Francophone networks are weak. They are very local, and poor, and for a variety of reasons a little 'self oriented'. This is a Quebec thing, but also a French thing, and naturally a thing that happens when you're an enclave of people speaking something other than English in North America.
Finally - there is a lack of industrial spirit in Montreal. They are academically, socially and creatively inclined, but they don't want to build 'products and services' and aren't keen on making 'big bucks'.
The series of 'big business' magnates that came up in Quebec over the last 40 years have been mostly locally oriented: taking up TV/Media, Energy and retail banking sectors during the 'quiet revolution'. The big 'startup' here is a Circus!
In my very Francophone neighbourhood, 100% of the waiters and waitresses will tell you they are 'in school' or 'actors' or 'photographers' - yet many of them are late 20's early 30's - and it's not exactly hollywood around here. An acquaintance calls herself a 'playwright' and she's written 2 tiny productions for the local theatre with 2 actors each - no props or anything. She's late in her 'career' already. This attitude is due to a bunch of historical factors and it runs deep.
I'm not suggesting people can't build great companies here, and surely some will pop up - and there are some natural advantages such as lots of students and ridiculously low cost of living ... but I'm not sure if anything big will come of it.
To grow a startup you need all sorts of motivated people with special skills: recruiting, supply chain, sometimes niche stuff like ASICS etc. - I never, ever meet anyone here remotely in that vein.
It's a great city, but I'm not sure it will ever be the 'leader' in anything applied or industrious. I predict a few wins here and there.
> An acquaintance calls herself a 'playwright' and she's written 2 tiny productions for the local theatre with 2 actors each - no props or anything. She's late in her 'career' already.
You are making such blanket statements of stereotypes.
The "career" of an artist, as you mention, is not something for you to judge the quality or success of. I suppose that because the great writer Bukowski was still working as an unknown postal worker at age 50 that he was also too late in his career. Or the many other artists with similar "careers". It's not you to judge someone else's artistic output, or for that matter, the quality of a network of people based on the language they speak.
A) French speaking Quebecers are poor, relative to N. America. Median wages are 'ok' due to lots of 'decent' government jobs, but mean wages for Francophones are very low.
B) Francophone business networks usually don't expand beyond Quebec. There are no elite Universities in Quebec (McGill is pretty good, but not French), and there is zero access to networks from elite schools among Francophones.
C) There are very few wealthy Francophone Quebecers who 'write cheques' for startups.
Ergo - networks are very weak here, it's just a fact.
I've lived in several cities in N.America/Europe, this is by far the weakest of 'known cities'. It's probably better than Orlando. Or Dublin. But worse than any of Boston, Toronto, Vancouver, Frankfurt, etc..
"The "career" of an artist, as you mention, is not something for you to judge the quality or success of. "
I'll judge these people however I want, but it's not a judgement to point out that people who prefer to serve coffee and write 1 short play every 10 years aren't the kinds of people who build high-tech startups. I know these people very well (I live in ground-zero of French Montreal), they prefer to do other things, that's fine, it's not a judgement, just a reality. (FYI Bukowski was prolific - he wrote tons of stuff).
A 'circus' - yes. I can't think of any other place in North America where 'Cirque du Soleil' could be born. And it seems there's a huge plethora of 'artisanal' small-scale things ...
I like Montreal, which is why I live here, and I have no doubt there will be some startups here and there that will win, but it will never be the 'leader' in any classical, industrious lines of business. There will likely never be a full-blown ecosystem here for any industry that doesn't already exist.
The people here do not have any interest in building it.
There are no elite Universities in Quebec (McGill is
pretty good, but not French), and there is zero access to
networks from elite schools among Francophones.
The Francophones in Quebec have traditionally been, as a population, mostly against making "big bucks". One of the reasons was the religion. The other was that the anglophone ruling class were more than happy to (read "actively engaged in") suppress French success in general.
A lot of things changed in the last century. There are a lot of first generation University students in Quebec today, most of them French speaking. Naturally, the wages in general are expected to be lower. But one has to make the distinction about cost of living. It's lower in Quebec than in a lot of other places. This would explain the relative lower number of French Quebecois who "sign checks" - although they do exist.
Do you have any idea how big is the "circus"? There are some interesting documentaries/reporting on YouTube. Worth checking out. Another big company is the Desjardins bank, which was ranked #1 strongest bank in North America last year IIRC.
Success is relative, it depends on your social status and on what your peers define as being successful. Sure you can apply the SV VC definition of successful to mostly anywhere in the world, and you won't be much impressed. That doesn't mean the locals aren't successful. For a example, for a long time in Quebec the definition of being successful was becoming a pharmacist, doctor, dentist or lawyer. That's something that is being felt today still: a lot of potentially great scientists/entrepreneurs just want to become doctors, because doctors are successful.
Arguably this is no different from elsewhere, but combined with the general population lagging behind the rest of N-A with regards to accumulated wealth and level of education, the net effects are bad (IMO). But the gap is lowering, and I know plenty of young people with big ambitions. Time will tell, but I'm an optimist for the future.
You don't need to lecture me on the history of Quebec, I'm well aware.
Harvard and Stanford are 'elite' schools.
U. Laval is not.
"Do you have any idea how big is the "circus"?" - it's somewhat less than $1 Billion revenue - which is not that huge.
Desjardins? Ha ... I use Desjardins as my main account - it's backwards and the most 'behind' of any major bank in Canada. I can't get a Visa Debit - among other things. Desjardins is '#1' in stability basically - because they are like a franchise and each branch is separate bank - they have extremely low lending leverage. This gives them a high degree of 'stability' (but also underperformance).
Don't be personal about it, I sense from your writing that you already know Montreal is not a 'winning city' and is not really moving in that direction.
Obviously I'm not 'anti Montreal' or I wouldn't chose to live here.
It's a great town, even a great town to build a startup in, but the people here have little interest in building industries, in the classical sense.
I don't understand the logic of people who hold the arguments you bring forth. It's as if because you're not "elite" (whatever that means) now, you will never be.
Yoshua Bengio's dream (if I may) is to make Montreal a global hotspot of AI research. That's all. Now you (and others) can bash it all you want, blame the local population, blame the language, blame the education system - whatever.
To me, the fact that some people are reacting the way you are is actually confirmation that things are doing well - quite contrary to your frankly misguided assumption that I have a defeatist opinion of the city and the province in general.
I have. Where do I start?
Just kidding :)
I would say if you want to help, go and work for a startup, or a growing private company that is not just a services entity who's #1 client is the government.
Ha ha - you nailed it.
I believe the 'extra 10%' kicks in at only 85K CDN. Which is not that much. It's like 65K USD. A pittance.
This has to be one hugely odd thing about Montreal - especially with exchange rates, salaries are so low.
You might think that's a good thing, but really, it's not because talent will leave.
On the other hand, if you have something good going, you can get good talent cheap, and perhaps pay them above market rates.
Even though the cost of living is commensurate - it's hard for young people to factor that in. They see $150K salary in the US and glaze over it.
I don't even earn a third of that, and I've been building native iOS, Android and Windows apps for more than 3 years...
This statement is not true, its not even close:
Montreal with a population of 1.65 million and 248K students would mean around 15% of the population are students.
Larger students per capita in North America would include:
Ames, Iowa 34.2 percent.
Ithaca, New York 32.8 percent.
State College, Pennsylvania 31.8 percent
Lawrence, Kansas 31.1 percent,
College Station-Bryan, Texas 30.6 percent.
For just raw student population numbers in North America:
Chicago has a student population of 670K.
Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami have 380k students each.
San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, and Detroit each have 300K students.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Montreal
http://www.citylab.com/design/2012/08/americas-leading-colle...
"With access to six universities and twelve junior colleges in an 8 kilometer (5 mi) radius, Montreal, Quebec (Canada) has the highest proportion of post-secondary students of all major cities in North America. "
All of the examples you gave are small college towns.
'Ames' 'Ithaca' 'State College' - those are not cities etc.
Montreal has 6 major universities and other colleges crammed right downtown in a tiny radius.
San Francisco does not have 300K students in the city. There are only 800K residents in SF, that would make almost 50% students :). The 'Bay Area' - sure. But the bay is huge - and not really even a city.
Chicago is a massive, sprawling city with 600K students.
Dallas-Forth Worth - again - massive, sprawling cities, geographically spread out.
Montreal - not including the suburbs, just the city proper, has 100's of thousands of students.
I think the only other city with the student density would be Boston and the numbers may be off because Harvard and MIT are technically in Cambridge, not Boston.
>"Montreal has more students/capita than anywhere in North America, due to a clustering of big Unis downtown"
They did not state Montreal has the highest student population density areas which is what you are now saying by qualifying that with some spatial component. They said highest "per capita."
They also did not specify "city", they said "anywhere."
In most other cities, they are way spread out in the region.
A Joke for you:
Little Johnny asks his mother: what does the word "bilingual" mean?
The mother answers, a person who speaks two languages.
Then Johnny asks, what do you call a person who speaks three languages then?
The mother answers: "trilingual."
How about one language?
"American"
I'll add that it appears to me that French-speakers appear to be the snottiest about it. I suspect that has much to do with the fact that English has largely supplanted French as the main international language of business and politics (which largely dates back to Wilson insisting that English be used when negotiating the Versailles treaty after WWI).
It's because English is the language that 'everyone else speaks'.
There's just no reason to learn French or German when you can 100% get by in France and Germany speaking English.
I've been to innumerable tech conferences where I've met the heads of 1 or 2 man game shops with no tangible product who call themselves "CEO".
I thought that kind of marketing died in '00s.