Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Eyes Toronto for Its Digital City

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 150 posts

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

#91

Post by aaaawweeeee »

mistermann wrote: post #85
aaaawweeeee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It is in the news. That's where I found out about it.

You can find many takes on it with a quick google on Tesla's unionization suppression efforts in their Fremont factory and Tesla's battles with the United Auto Workers US union.

The German dispute is also in the news, in English and German, and can be found with a quick google as well.

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

#92

Post by miraj »

rckrd wrote: post #21
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?

The University of Toronto is home to Geoffrey Hinton and his research lab. Hinton was the first to use backpropagation for machine learning and a lot of the techniques used today were pioneered by his lab. He is also manages the Google Brain team in Toronto. Yann LeCun, the director of AI at Facebook, also did a postdoc at Toronto. [0] http://learning.cs.toronto.edu:40292/people#Faculty [1] http://yann.lecun.com/

and some more. here is a neat little article re: Hinton's network effect!

"Six degrees of separation: how U of T's Geoffrey Hinton is connected to top AI researchers around the world" https://www.utoronto.ca/news/six-degrees-separation-how-u-t-...

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

#93

Post by paulgb »

tormeh wrote: post #47
win_ini wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Toronto is like New York, but without all the 'stuff'" - Steve Martin, SNL. Toronto has grown up a lot in the pst few years. The canadian dollar is about 20% less than USD, so VC dollars go further - and while competitive, hiring engineers is nothing like the bay. That said, there is a shallow pool of senior SaaS startup folks in Toronto compared to SF or New York.

>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.

Yes, this fallacy always bothers me. The Canadian Toonie trades strongly against the US dollar; using the half-Toonie as a benchmark is an arbitrary choice.

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

#94

Post by 52-6F-62 »

hourislate wrote: post #81
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…

I had to try and explain this to my girlfriend and her visiting sister last night. They're from Victoria and Vancouver and want us to move there.

I can barely afford to live in Toronto on my salary, never mind Vancouver and the cost of moving across the country. To my knowledge -- in spite of the higher cost of living -- Vancouver-based software professionals don't make any more than they do here.

That and most people here still equate software = computers = IT department = "Can you fix my laptop?"/"Why doesn't the projector work?"

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

#95

Post by verelo »

Toronto is certainly booming today, hiring is hard, houses are getting expensive and everyone is talking about joining in on the fun...meanwhile I live here and love it, please take your shoes off at the door.

I'm a touch worried this will end up like the World Fair and we'll end up with a collection of derelict and unwanted "high tech" artefacts left for the original inhabitants to cleanup. I just don't trust Alphabet to act in a responsible way when it comes to respecting cities that real people live in.

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

#96

Post by deelowe »

lightbyte wrote: post #80
dannyr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you pull that 80% from? Or you just feel like it's 80%? Most of Google's big projects are still alive today. Search, Gmail, Android, GSuite, Chrome, Drive, AdWords, YouTube, etc. There are a few big projects that they shut down but most are smaller projects. Do we want Google to just launch products that they will keep alive indefinitely whether it succeeds or not? Should Google not have started its self-dr…

Google bought YouTube after it was already hugely successful. I don't think it makes the best example here.

I wouldn't characterize hemorrhaging money and facing lawsuits from all of major media players as being successful.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15196982/ns/business-us_business/t...

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

#97

Post by lhorie »

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?

I know of more than a few companies that are growing tech teams here in Toronto (while primarily having US-based clients) because average salaries are lower than in the US tech centers.

My impression is that the tech workforce here is healthy for a few reasons:

1) the presence of tech giants such as IBM in Markham (plus Toronto's fame for multiculturalism and for having high quality of life) means it attracts a lot of Indian, Chinese and eastern Europe talent. There's also a fair amount of ex-IBMers etc spilling over into growing mid-sized companies that need senior level tech workers with large corp experience.

2) there's a relatively healthy startup scene, but investment here is fairly conservative. Startups without profit strategies tend to die quickly, so as a result, startups here tend to be less pie-in-the-sky than SF unicorn wannabes. Because companies grow steadily and conservatively, they often provide high job security environments that encourage long single-company careers. This creates an incentive for experienced tech workers to stay in Toronto, rather than chase higher salaries elsewhere. I know many tech people that have been in a single company for 7+ years (some even 16+ years!)

3) there are some strong tech education options like Waterloo, which often collaborates with big name organizations like Mozilla. Internships to help get new grads get their foot in the door of the industry are also fairly common

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

#98

Post by goatforce5 »

win_ini wrote: post #19
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?

"Toronto is like New York, but without all the 'stuff'" - Steve Martin, SNL. Toronto has grown up a lot in the pst few years. The canadian dollar is about 20% less than USD, so VC dollars go further - and while competitive, hiring engineers is nothing like the bay. That said, there is a shallow pool of senior SaaS startup folks in Toronto compared to SF or New York.

That quote was from 30 Rock, when Steve Martin's character was trying to convince Liz Lemon to move to Toronto.

http://www.hark.com/clips/ssxbqzctpx-toronto-is-just-like-ne...

One of the local TV stations used it in their station IDs for a while, which I thought was hilarious.

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

#99

Post by matthewrudy »

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

The point that's being made is that the currency exchange rate and the cost of an engineer (converted to USD) are independent.

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

#100

Post by matthewrudy »

walshemj wrote: post #86
bigmanwalter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

20% cheaper since last June too.
Post reply on HN