Toronto Tech Boom

[Admiral Beez]

It's pretty self-evident that the days of the Mississauga offices is numbered given the general trend of late.

I'd love that. My office is at Hurontario and Lakeshore, so the drive or GoTrain can be a trial.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I think what you are beginning to see is a shift of HQs back downtown - perhaps a few staying in the burbs, with an few satellite offices remaining in the burbs for staff that wish to stay out there.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Another day, another Toronto tech story - from the Globe:

Uber to invest more than $200-million in Toronto engineering lab, self-driving car centre

AoD

 

[JasonParis]

The articles don't seem to mention where exactly Intel's Toronto expansion is going. Or did I miss it?

 

[narduch]

So when are these major corps going to start pushing for the DRL and other downtown transit projects to get moving?

 

[sixrings]

So when are these major corps going to start pushing for the DRL and other downtown transit projects to get moving?

They must care but at the same time they must have done the research and figured so many yonge talented people already live in the area that even if the transit doesn't get built their staff will be ok. DRL long is realistically 2040 with all the delays and differed spending.

 

[TheKingEast]

That just means more and more people will move downtown so they can be closer to these proposed offices. Our transit ineptitude won't be rectified for a long while so be prepared to see an influx of renters moving within walking distance.

 

[SunriseChampion]

I'd love that. My office is at Hurontario and Lakeshore, so the drive or GoTrain can be a trial.

You find the train ride to Port Credit to be rough?
Is it because of delays?

 

[TrickyRicky]

It’s starting to have the feeling of a good old fashion 19th or early 20th century factory town set-up but where the workers are housed in private high rise condos instead of factory residences, and their output is in digits not widgets. Will romance bloom on the shop floor, I mean cool open concept work hub floor?

 

[Johnny Au]

I do like some of the recent MS product design (Surface Studio in particular - but oh so expensive for such mediocre specs), but their stores are just so unappealing - crowded, messy, no product focus. Let's face it, I wouldn't put most gaming laptops anywhere customer facing given how ugly those things tend to be (actually - most "gaming" products in general - they tend to look like they're designed by someone with ADD)

AoD

The Surface Studio is perhaps among the only good Windows 10 computers in my view (and it's not cost-effective).

Microsoft's weakness is that it's trying to be the jack-of-all-trades. Often, being jack-of-all-trades means being the master of none.

There's a good reason why there are no physical Google stores found outside of Mountain View, CA. There's a good reason why there are no dedicated Nintendo stores located outside an island (Nintendo has stores in Honshu and Manhattan, both being islands).

 

[jje1000]

Some nice validation of Toronto's education system and tech talent. That being said, is there a double-edged sword in terms of living costs? Rent might not be $3,000+ now, but would it be if we enter another tech-driven bubble?

Tech giants point to new talent as primary reason for Toronto investment

With some of the best post-secondary institutions in the world, Toronto is attracting, retaining and developing more talent than any other city in North America right now.

That’s according to industry leaders, who point to talent as one of the primary reasons two major tech players announced plans to expand in Toronto this week.

“When these companies are coming in, they’re not bringing thousands of people with them, they want to access what’s here,” said Toby Lennox, Toronto Global CEO.

“We’re going to offer opportunities for current Uber engineers to re-locate from various company sites to Toronto, and we expect a lot of them to take us up on that,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “This is a pretty nice place to live, the cost of living is pretty attractive compared to San Francisco.”

While rent is skyrocketing across the city – with a downtown condo ringing in at a record average $2,300 a month – tech leaders say this market is actually reasonable for young adults in the industry, used to paying over $1,000 more in the Bay Area.

But Toronto still faces challenges when it comes to being taken seriously by the tech world at large.

“Let’s not overestimate our profile. In the United States we’re still a bit of an odd outlier,” said Lennox.

It helps that Toronto is becoming well-known for some interesting innovations – a prime example: artificial intelligence.

“Some of the best AI experts are here in Canada,” said Jaxson Khan of Nudge AI.

“This is unbelievable that we have this huge mass of experts here. And the fact is, dozens of research scientists have also come up from the U.S. in the past year simply because of all the networks and hubs that we’re creating here.”

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/09...new-talent-primary-reason-toronto-investment/

 

[jje1000]

What if the Toronto-Waterloo corridor really becomes the next Silicon Valley?

That’s a big piece, but there’s still plenty of work to be done if Toronto wants to be a self-sustaining Silicon Valley. While a June 2017 report from BDC Capital found that there’s been a 113-per-cent increase in venture capitalism in Canada between 2011 and 2016—an important grease that makes the whole system go—we still lag well behind Silicon Valley. And while having major players just down the street does help with talent cultivation and idea generation—”to create a world-class start-up, you almost have to have been inside a big company like Facebook, and that’s a big part of getting an ecosystem off the ground,” Mullin says—our start-ups have struggled to scale up before cashing out, usually to U.S. companies. And those are the three pillars of a truly healthy tech ecosystem: quality start-ups, successful scale-ups, and the plentiful lubrication of venture capitalism.

That’s the potential downside of these tech giants’ expansion; while their arrival can put a spotlight on a given region, they can also suck up the oxygen, wielding big chequebooks and enormous prestige to woo the talent needed to make Canada’s homegrown start-ups succeed. Those large firms’ shiny, new research labs create jobs, but they also only generate profit for that foreign company. And the presence of these billion-dollar companies can fuel the allure of selling off a small start-up (and the ideas within) before it has a chance to scale into a major player, warping success to mean a big, cash-out exit, rather than a game-changing idea for Canada. Indeed, while Canada can boast its own brand-name tech heavyweights—Shopify, Slack, and Hootsuite, to name three—noneare headquartered out of Toronto, and their valuations remain relatively paltry in comparison. “I want to see exits not as a takeover of a Canadian company by a foreign company, but I want to see those exits in terms of a Canadian company getting a billion- or a multi-billion-dollar valuation, and staying in Canadian hands,” says Wolfe. “To me, that’s going to be the ultimate test of whether we truly emerge as a rival of Silicon Valley.”

That has a big impact on what Canada’s getting out of these investments, especially as the country continues to struggle protecting its own intellectual property. “We teach companies to take out a patent for their research findings, but we don’t do nearly as good a job in teaching companies how to use patents as a strategic weapon,” says Wolfe.

From economic need to the allure of big-name players, there are plenty of signs to suggest that the conditions are in place to realistically make the Toronto-Waterloo corridor a legitimate Silicon Valley rival. But there is one big question to be answered: Is that what we actually want? After all, in San Francisco and San Jose, the highest earners make more than 10.5 times its lowest earners, making it one of the most unequal regions in the U.S. According to Citylab, rents are 227 per cent higher than the national average, while the California Association of Realtors reported in June that the median price of a house in San Francisco was USD$1.6 million. Meanwhile, chronic budget problems are preventing an at-capacity public transportation system from much-needed expansion. Many of those issues already exist, in some form, in Toronto, and “tech is part of a bigger set of economic forces that exacerbate that,” Wolfe says.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/con...-tech-boom-raises-collaboration-concerns.html


Will be interested in seeing if this collaborative ethos survives through the growth of the tech industry.

Toronto’s tech boom raises collaboration concerns

But there’s a catch.

Some of these jobs might come at the expense of our local companies. Some startup CEOs fear that top engineers will be unable to resist the gravitational pull — and deep pockets — of companies like Uber and Microsoft. They are nervous that Toronto’s already tight market for talent will get even more competitive, which could end up stifling the growth of made-in-Canada companies.

What’s interesting about Uber’s announcement today is that it acknowledges its impact on communities and promises to support the growth of Canada’s tech sector. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi talks about responsibly ramping up its operations in Toronto over a several years and relocating dozens of staff here from around North America, which would ultimately deepen the talent pool.

Our tech sector has a collaborative ethos that’s quite unlike the winner-take-all mentality in cities like New York or Boston. While Toronto’s entrepreneurs are smart, fierce competitors, they also believe in raising all boats. That collective spirit is a fundamental part of who we are as Canadians. It’s what makes us different and gives us an edge in a rapidly changing world.

Toronto’s tech sector works well because it has a widespread commitment to responsible innovation and an understanding that all parties need to deposit more than they withdraw. That code of conduct keeps the community healthy, balanced and growing, which reduces transaction costs and eliminates inertia for everyone.

The road that brought the global companies here wasn’t a one-way street. There should be a two-way exchange of value. That takes a shared commitment to grow a collaborative tech sector in Toronto that will benefit Canada and the world.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/con...-tech-boom-raises-collaboration-concerns.html

 

[Northern Light]

No new articles to post here.

I was reviewing the thread and decided to do a bit of research.

According to the CBRE report back in July that discussed Toronto's tech employment growth, (roughly 29,000 jobs last year).........

Toronto's total tech employment is 241,000, that's before the recent announcements.

One can't speak to the indefinite or even medium term future without a high risk of error, but it certainly appears that the rate of growth will continue in the near term.

In saying as much, if we grew our tech employment by the same in 2018 as the previous year, and other cities grew at comparable rates to their 2017, Toronto would be the #2 tech job market in North America, behind only the SF Bay area.

One would tend to assume there will be limits on the rate of growth, but were it sustained we would surpass the SF area in less than 6 years.

What a peculiar notion.

I am not suggesting that will happen by the way, but the fact it isn't completely unrealistic is rather stunning. That would not have been a viable conversation piece 5 years ago.

One final anecdote, I have good friend who is an IT instructor in our Community college system.

He tells me growth in enrollment is off the charts with new sections of courses being added every semester.

He also notes w/interest the proportion of foreign (as in non-citizens, and but for school, non-residents) in the courses is quite large. This would seem to speak well of the quality of instruction/reputation

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I feel like our university system is part of the reason why this is the case.

We have a ton of universities between Ottawa, K-W and the GTHA. However, we also have universities like Queens, Trent, Brock and Western who are full of Toronto-area students who after graduating, intend to come back to work in Toronto.

I feel like that gets forgotten whenever we talk about how many grads get pushed through Toronto-area universities. (it was omitted in the Amazon HQ2 document)

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The Surface Studio is perhaps among the only good Windows 10 computers in my view (and it's not cost-effective).

Microsoft's weakness is that it's trying to be the jack-of-all-trades. Often, being jack-of-all-trades means being the master of none.

There's a good reason why there are no physical Google stores found outside of Mountain View, CA. There's a good reason why there are no dedicated Nintendo stores located outside an island (Nintendo has stores in Honshu and Manhattan, both being islands).

Actually the first thought that came to my mind re: Surface Studio is - is there a 27" screen protector.

AoD