Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#261

Post by AzzieElbab » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 6:19 AM UTC

fingerprinter wrote: post #81

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…

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

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#262

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 6:30 AM UTC

megablast wrote: post #246

086421357909764 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#263

Post by mrgordon » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 6:31 AM UTC

AlexC04 wrote: post #86

shurcooL wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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?

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.

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#264

Post by cnfjti3 » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 6:32 AM UTC

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #258

lcc wrote: post #80

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',…

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.

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#265

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 6:33 AM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #179

Apocryphon wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#266

Post by matt_wulfeck » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 7:06 AM UTC

err4nt wrote: post #236

lcc wrote: post #80

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',…

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.

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#267

Post by tensor » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 7:24 AM UTC

lewisl9029 wrote: post #242

tensor wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Toront…

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 t…

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.

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#268

Post by lewisl9029 » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 8:54 AM UTC

tensor wrote: post #267

lewisl9029 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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.

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#269

Post by FollowSteph3 » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 10:42 AM UTC

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...

Re: Toronto is poised to become a producer of tech startups

#270

Post by cmrdporcupine » Mon, Jun 13, 2016, 12:31 PM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #260

overcast wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.