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Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

bloomberg.com

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Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#81

Post by hourislate »

vtange wrote: post #15

I can't help but notice right now that Toronto's name has been increasingly pushed as some sort of "next tech centre" (well, many cities in the world want to be something like that). Can someone who's actually there fill me in on what's happening there? How does Toronto's scene compare to say, New York or Seattle?

There are 1000's of underemployed CS Grads earning a pittance compared to their American counterparts. You get access to a large talent pool that makes less than what you would pay an H1B person.

ATM there is about a 37% difference in CAD-USD. So that is just a bonus.

It is also Canada's biggest city and business capital. The only real cons is the price of real estate and high taxes but Google has all kinds of money so that shouldn't be an obstacle. There is also the an issue of poor transportation infra but since this will be developed downtown that shouldn't be an issue either.

I am sure the Provincial/Federal Gov will throw in quite a few enticements since there is an election coming up and they are desperate for some kind of meaningful employment gains.

It's a nice city to visit but you have to be wealthy to live there. It's Canada's version of NYC (a much, much, much smaller version).

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#82

Post by havetocharge »

oculusthrift wrote: post #12
dannyr wrote: post #6

Crazy. People on Hacker News are still upset at Google for shutting down Reader.

you realize they shut down like 80 percent of what they start? or atleast abandon it?

Why is that significant? How many projects has GE or IBM discontinued? Google is at the peak of its profitability today, so whatever is being done to products seems to be working out.

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#83

Post by addicted »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #65
jensvdh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more companies are turning towards Canada after all the immigration bullshit the US government is pulling.

I think this is it, and it does nothing to help the tech companies' reputations to move these jobs. The "immigration bullshit" was in response to outsourcing, immigration, and exploitation of visa programs to exploit cheap labor and keep wages down. By shipping these jobs overseas at the first sign of a worker/employer leverage shift, it shows us that these companies don't care about providing for its employees, they…

It's because people don't understand that if you make it difficult to pay software developers who may be citizens of a different country $80000 to work in the US, companies can just as easily outsource to those same software developers, in their own countries, but instead pay them $20/hr instead.

Essentially, America was able to use its mythology as a land of opportunity and equality to convert $20/hr being sent elsewhere to getting 20 somethings to move to the US after their home country took up all the burden of paying for them being raised through their childhood and subsidizing their education and pay them to stay in the US and spend money there (and get a good chance of creating a billion dollar startup in the US instead of their home country as well).

Much like most decisions Americans have been making lately, the push to de emphasize immigration is pretty much all downsides for the US, for little to no return, other than "we stuck it to them!"

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#84

Post by mikerice »

tenpies wrote: post #16
theCricketer wrote: post #13

Out of curiousity and so we can all concretely imagine how Sidewalk Labs plans to transform cities, can someone explain what are the speicific changes and associated benefits in this new kind of city? It mentions, autonomous transit, ride sharing, cheaper housing (how?). Can someone paint a fuller picture of what will be new and how it will be beneficial. I'm not skeptical at all, in fact I'm very hopeful. I just wan…

Personally I'm interested in seeing the privacy impact assessment if there is an actual proposal. This isn't Google doing it out of some utopian goodness of their heart. Everything in those 12 blocks will be logged, analyzed, and sold to advertisers.

Yeah I mean I get why people in Toronto are excited, but not a single person is thinking of privacy implications. It grosses me out.

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#85

Post by mistermann »

aaaawweeeee wrote: post #75
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is it, and it does nothing to help the tech companies' reputations to move these jobs. The "immigration bullshit" was in response to outsourcing, immigration, and exploitation of visa programs to exploit cheap labor and keep wages down. By shipping these jobs overseas at the first sign of a worker/employer leverage shift, it shows us that these companies don't care about providing for its employees, they…

Unless you have strong unions who can wrestle with the tech strong-arms, tech companies, or any company, don't have to pander to your basic necessity for a decent working life. The unions in the US are pathetic, and corrupted by the mafia, and workers are suffering humiliations because of that. Here's a tragicomic anecdote that illustrates my point: Recently in Germany, Tesla has been struggling with the German union…

Tesla workers are revolting? Why isn't this in the news?

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#86

Post by walshemj »

bigmanwalter wrote: post #74
tormeh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The canadian dollar is about 20% less than USD, so VC dollars go further How expensive a nation is and the exchange rate of its currency is independent.

In this case it isn't though. Canadian engineers make less than American engineers

Exactly its why London is popular UK Engineers are cheap speak English natively and are used to being treated like second class profesionals.

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#87

Post by rory096 »

walshemj wrote: post #60
eigenvector wrote: post #36

> He’s also hinted at tech’s ability to overhaul zoning rules and control housing costs, a particular interest of Alphabet’s Page. Yeah, right. Toronto is one of the most retrograde cities on housing intensification (it still hasn't intensified around the Bloor-Danforth subway that was built a generation ago)[1]. In fact many neighbourhoods are losing population as the region grows due to extremely restrictive zoning…

And how would they control housing costs? Not going to stop speculators from China and Russia desperately trying to move money out of their home countries to stop the government getting its hands on it

Build more housing.

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#89

Post by jmreid »

mabbo wrote: post #67
tenpies wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also shouldn't be ignored that labour costs in Canada are less than half of what they are in the US Should add that this works both ways. Most Canadians who can, do end up leaving for the US since they can easily make 2 - 4X the income, even after CoL and insurance. There is a non-trivial amount of brain drain happening in Canada.

A lot of us come back though. Five years ago I loaded up a truck and moved from Seattle to Toronto. My wife and I didn't want to settle down in America, even if the money would have been that much better. Seattle is a great city, but it's still very American and that overall American culture never felt like home to us.

My wife and I did the exact same thing, except it was SF. We're very happy that we moved back to Toronto and Canada in general. It's our home (friends and family are here) and we didn't want to have kids in SF.

Re: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

#90

Post by jtraffic »

"People thought it was crazy when Google decided to connect all the world’s information"

I'd love to see a citation for this. I sort of doubt, at the moment, that anyone seriously said "Google is crazy for trying to connect the world's information." The implication is that I find the comparison to be a bit silly.

The self driving car comparison is more accurate but much less informative: we still don't know how it will turn out.

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