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Canadian Tech Is Having a Moment
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gregwtmtno 9y agoI'm always weary of "having a moment" stories. It often means the author is going to try to string together unrelated events into a narrative.
- blazespin 9y agoYeah, using a pretty tired and trite phrase like that doesn't bode well. To be fair though, the titles are often not written by the writers themselves.
- VHRanger 9y agoMontreal is really hot in AI/data science. U Montreal is arguably the top research university in deep learning at the moment, and McGill and Concordia also have good CS departments. The IVADO (a cross university data science institute in montreal) recently got a $93M investment for research and promotion of data science in Montreal.
- anth1988 9y agoHigh quality schools help, but people still graduate and run off to the states to make more money.
- startupdiscuss 9y agoWell at least the "X is the next Silicon Valley" angle is original.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoEventually tech will find a way out of the money black hole of CA. You can be weary of these stories but eventually there will be snowball that rolls far enough to become big enough to be worth caring about.
- acchow 9y agoClickbait, vapid article. Canada will "begin to have a moment" when a $20bn exit spawns a legion of millionaires happy to become VCs. Except they probably wouldn't want to become VCs since they don't see many successful VCs around them, there aren't many big exits, and there isn't a huge startup ecosystem. Chicken and egg problem.
- devoply 9y agoCanadian government should get involved with a billion dollars a year pumped into the startup scene via seasoned VCs that only see a dime if there is an exit or an IPO.
- ihsw2 9y agoThe trick is to ensure leadership is strong and coherent, preventing implosion from within, and maintain salary growth to keep the workforce healthy.
- DKnoll 9y agoCTRL+F "OpenText" 0 results CTRL+W
- striking 9y agoI assume they mean the startup scene. OpenText are great, but they were founded pre-dot-com...
- DKnoll 9y agoOk, then SOTI. They just cherry picked companies to support their point.
- astrodust 9y agoWho? Are they like Hummingbird or that lawnmower company Mike and Ted founded?
- mikekchar 9y agoCanadian trivia: It has been said by many that Mitel stood for "Mike and Terry's Lawnmowers". When they left Bell Northern they weren't quite sure what kind of company to make -- just that they wanted to make their own company. I actually went to a dinner and was fortunate enough to sit next to Terry Mathews. I asked him if it was true and he declined to answer, so I'm still not sure :-)
- scj 9y ago"Silicon Valley venture firms are hustling to Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal and Vancouver to invest in Canadian startups." What is the Montreal tech scene like for an Anglophone?
- tachyonbeam 9y agoPretty good I think. I know many anglophones who have lived in Montreal for years, do not speak French, and get by fine.
- greywhurter 9y agoI agree. That has been my experience...
- astrodust 9y agoIt's actually astonishing how people who've lived in urban Montreal for over a decade speak almost zero French.
- raverbashing 9y agoCorrect, some don't make any effort (they should, come on)
- RodericDay 9y agoVery very fun. You don't get paid like an ultra rockstar that lives in a different strata of society than other people, but it being Montreal where rent is affordable and events like the International Jazz Fest, Tam Tams, or drinking wine in one of the many parks is free, and you move all over the island with high quality public transport, it's for the better. However, it feels a little bit hollow sometimes and like not a lot of real tech work is being done. Lots of stuff geared towards yuppies and going to coffee shops and renting pads and shopping, not a lot of really groundbreaking stuff. There's gaming companies (eg: Ubisoft), old ex-startups (eg: Shopify), new startups (eg: Transit), Google and Microsoft have offices here, big investment into machine learning research in local universities, etc. It's a college town... for 5 universities... in the downtown of a great city. There's probably better places to go if you want a super prestige-track career, but I doubt there's many places that are more fun or better balanced.
- nvk 9y agoToronto is a major Bitcoin hub.
- otoburb 9y agoToronto also has a vibrant Etheruem presence as Vitalik grew up there and started Ethereum while living in Toronto.
- Descon 9y agoCalgary's a city to keep an eye on too. Companies like IStock photo and SMART were built here. And now Benevity's a big up and comer.
- Zikes 9y agoThat's good to hear, I have some Swedish friends that are looking to move to Calgary in the next few years and were worried about tech job availability.
- mpalmes 9y agoAlso RocketSpace will be opening their first Canadian office in Calgary. The local government is starting to push for a bigger tech industry and add diversity away from the oil/gas industry that has dominated the city. Also the climate isn't so bad with plenty of sunshine and warm Chinook winds occasionally during the winter.
- blazespin 9y agoMaybe Trump will end the TN visa. Boy, then you'll see the canada tech scene - especially Vancouver, blow up.
- mahyarm 9y agoOr the L1 visa
- venomsnake 9y agoBecause what Vancouver needs is even higher real estate prices
- drpgq 9y agoYeah sometimes I wonder if Canada anticipated the massive brain drain the TN visa has ended up being. It would be ironic if Trump shut it down.
- ninjakeyboard 9y agoWe are a small (2+ person) consulting company in the distributed and data spaces. We've been at it for 8 months and understand the needs in enterprises after working as principal consultants for the time. We have a good model, and there is demand, so we're looking to go through our first round of hiring but need a small investment to make the leap. If you're looking for somewhere fast and low risk to turn some money around... :)
- sumitgt 9y agoCan you add some more details?
- ninjakeyboard 9y agoget at us through redelastic.com if you want to reach out.
- uiri 9y agoBrain drain will continue until compensation in Canada rises to match compensation in the US.
- astrodust 9y agoLet it drain if it has to. We don't need a hyper-saturated VC market.
- rlucas 9y agoThat doesn't make any sense. "Brain drain" is when your technologists leave (often going toward a more "hyper saturated VC" geography). What is left behind is the same amount of VC dollars but fewer technologists to build things. Which leads to more "saturation" all else equal. If you don't want the same SF Bay Area level of VC-funded craziness, the answer isn't to "let it drain" all the technologists out of Canada. The answer is to keep them home and have them build awesome stuff and profitable companies in Canada. (With a more sustainable / reasonable amount of VC funding.) A good way to sell that is to focus on all the things BESIDES Bay Area VC $ that Canada offers: lifestyle and values, visa / immigration ease, outdoor opportunities, land/house purchase prices (well, outside of a few spots), political stability, and strong support for local champion tech companies. But just saying "let it drain," ugh. That's terrible. Brain drains really are one of the nastiest things that can happen with semi-porous borders. Very harmful to a region when its technologists (or whatever other highly educated bunch) leave en masse.
- astrodust 9y agoWhat I'm saying is if the only way to retain the top-top talent is to pay outrageous, unsustainable wages, then it's better to let someone else take that hit and instead focus on making the best with what's left. Talent is a renewable resource as well. It's a fact that every year students graduate from university. If the market changes and Canadian firms can pay more competitive wages, either by getting more money or because Silicon Valley implodes, everything will sort itself out. Canada is just one country in a world of much bigger countries. To think we could retain 100% of our top talent is to over-state our importance. We should let some of our best and brightest go work abroad. We're not sending literally everyone, after all.
- dredmorbius 9y agoI'd really like to see some comparative historical coverage of the development (and fall) of US technology hubs. There's been some recent discussion, but I can think of a few: * New England, 19th century. Early manufacturing and milltown works, first water-powered, later steam. * Late 19th century industrialisation. Edison (New Jersey), Bethlehem and U.S. Steel (Bethlehem and Pittsburgh, PA) * Early 20th century: Detroit * Mid-20th century: Rochester & Buffalo, NY, Boston / Route 128, Research Triangle Park / NC, Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, Santa Monica (RAND). * Late 20th / early 21st: Seattle, Boulder, CO, Austin, TX, and of course, Silicon Valley / SF-SJ corridor. If anyone has some solid recommended reading, I'm all ears. Or eyes.
- thedangler 9y agoReally wish they would go to London Ont, cost of living is still relatively cheap and it would be good for the city.
- rubayeet 9y agoWhat is the tech scene at Halifax, Nova Scotia? I am landing there in a few weeks and have been researching about it for a while. I could not get much through the Ask HN[0] post I submitted a while ago. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14428966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14428966