
Silicon Valley Looks North as Tech Giants Expand in Toronto - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-looks-north-as-tech-giants-expand-in-toronto-11566054001?mod=rsswn
======
mabbo
> Though Toronto lost the bid, Amazon still opened a 113,000 square-foot
> office in the downtown core in December and said it would hire 600 new
> employees.

Wow, they really didn't do any research on this.

Amazon's first Toronto office opened almost 8 years ago. I moved to the office
7 years ago, when it was 25 people Growth has been constant or accelerating
since then. We now have over 1000 full time employees- mostly devs, but also
some AWS and Ads sales folks now too. Every department seems to have at least
a couple teams here. There's two buildings, both running out of space.

And it's not like it's all "couldn't get a US visa, send them to Canada"
either. Most of those folks, after a year with Amazon, could probably qualify
for an L-1 and transfer to Seattle- but they don't. And a lot of the people
being hired are local talent.

Like most of my coworkers, I could definitely get an increase in total comp if
I moved to a US office. My wife and I don't want to live in America though-
the culture isn't one we like, the politics are terrifying, the gun obsession
and violence... Toronto's not perfect, but it's where we want to stay.

~~~
jorblumesea
> the culture isn't one we like, the politics are terrifying, the gun
> obsession and violence

Life in the US isn't like that for most people who live here. It's fine you
don't want to live here, that's okay. But the idea that the majority or even
many Americans are gun toting nutjobs is false. If you live in a major US city
your life is almost exactly the same as any major Canadian city. Vancouver
might as well be a larger Seattle. Having lived in both countries, your day to
day differences are fairly minor.

There are outliers of course, Texas and Florida are very unique places. The
South is generally higher crime. But living in Chicago, Seattle or NYC isn't
that different from Toronto or Vancouver.

Toronto's murder rate is 3.11 per 100,000 people, which is higher than NYC and
Seattle: [https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/stats-show-sharp-uptick-in-
tor...](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/stats-show-sharp-uptick-in-toronto-
shootings-but-murder-rate-still-below-a-dozen-other-canadian-cities-1.4224142)
Many Canadian cities are on par with their US cousins.

The major difference is actually healthcare.

~~~
Tiktaalik
Even relatively liberal Washington State, which is culturally similar to BC,
is an open carry state. Many Canadians would be uncomfortable to find some
random dude walking around the super market with a gun.

~~~
jorblumesea
I've lived in Washington my entire life (except for a stint in Vancouver) and
have never seen anyone walk around with open carry in public. Technically it's
on the books but once again the average day to day experience isn't people
walking around at Costco strapped up. This is what I'm talking about, everyone
talks about how insane the US is, but our day to day life isn't that
different.

I wonder how many have actually been?

edit: this is not to take away from the serious challenges that the US has
when it comes to many issues. I am by no means excusing our income inequality
or absurd healthcare system. Just trying to convey a perspective from someone
who lives there. There's a lot we need to improve but this isn't the wild west
either.

~~~
jbay808
For what another anecdote is worth, I lived in Washington state for 3 months
and have seen it twice. (Once in a Seattle food court). As a Canadian it was
quite a culture shock.

------
jammygit
> We are squandering our future,” said Jim Balsillie, former co-CEO of
> BlackBerry Ltd., whose smartphones were once ubiquitous. Canada isn’t
> benefiting from recent innovations local researchers have made in artificial
> intelligence, voice- and image-recognition and self-driving automobiles
> because they are employed by foreign firms that own the intellectual
> property, said Mr. Balsillie.

For many years, policy in Canada seems to have been to attract foreign
companies to set up offices and factories here. The bold dream seems to be of
being the foreign high-skill labour capital of the world. Instead of finding
ways to promote local entrepreneurship, the government worries whether
Canadian law will scare big tech from creating jobs for us.

At least we have Shopify. Apparently PlentyOfFish, Ashley Madison, and PornHub
too :facepalm:

~~~
avocado4
Canadian tech scene is not bad given the small population and relatively
recent investments in this area. That is, compared to EU where there's pretty
much no tech other than Spotify, and any promising upstarts are getting
preemptively destroyed by EU and local governments.

It takes decades to build Silicon Valley, and Canada's focus on foreign
talent, business friendly regulation, and general North American enterprising
culture might get it there over time.

~~~
trilila
In the EU, London, Uk a nodejs developer earns around 800 cad per day as a
consultant, and there so many jobs that usually you find a new one in 1-2 days
max a week. Tho much lower, Germany is also a good tech market. I am not sure
what your statement is based on. When i assessed moving to Canada from the uk,
not only were there far less companies but tech was a bit out date as well and
pay was way way lower. Care to support your statement with evidence?

Edit: you can find eu jobs on cwjobs.co.uk and stepstone.de to get an idea of
how large the gap between canada and the eu is.

~~~
avocado4
I'm not considering the UK a part of EU anymore.

------
hollander
Seems like the logical thing to do with a totally unpredictable president and
a spineless republican party, especially if they get elected for another four
years.

~~~
addicted
If you look at the points needed to get a Canadian work visa, it’s shot up
dramatically. Our company had to move some employees from the US to Canada
(that’s what not giving them the ability to work for 6 months, to still be
resolved, will do...) and over that span of time the requirements have shot
up. Which indicates there has been a significant increase in the number and
quality of people moving there (and since they have some special tech program,
it’s tech people moving).

~~~
ramraj07
Whats the most recent cutoff?

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thewarrior
Natural thing to do given how hard it is to bring people into the US. All the
tech giants have been quietly building up their presence outside the US.

~~~
godzillabrennus
R&D tax credits in Canada are also attractive.

~~~
jammygit
Apparently SR&ED in specific is an amazing subsidy, it can fund almost half of
your R&D labour spending IIRC?

~~~
endorphone
They've gotten significantly more picky about what qualifies as R&D, however.
Just building some software generally doesn't qualify, and they've had years
of firms sending in R&D claims for their CRUD app that they've gotten
incredibly dubious. It isn't pleasant when the CRA investigator calls (I've
received one of those calls, being at a firm that decided to drink some of
those delicious credits for our web app, imagining how every aspect was
actually some new invention).

If you're legitimately doing bonafide R&D -- like a team doing serious AI
work, etc -- it's glorious, but it is a false hope for a lot of copy/paste
type shops.

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Tistel
I live in Toronto. I wish companies would choose cities other than Vancouver
and Toronto. The housing/family costs in those two cites are pretty crazy.
Pro-tip to any people looking to expand north: try Halifax on the east coast.
NS is low cost and has a bunch of universities. Also, Calgary is nice too.

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brooksidetiger
Paywalled. Not sure how to feel about this. Toronto has changed substantially
in the last decade and a half, going from a place where property was
affordable and socialized resources like community centres and healthcare were
accessible to a place that's overcrowded and worse in many ways if you were
used to the high quality of life it used to offer. I don't see a silver lining
in a potentially higher salary because it will just be captured by landlords /
rising cost of living. I also don't think all these competing companies will
cause salaries to rise that much since its much easier to bring immigrants
over here and improve the pool of job candidates. My company in particular has
doubled the people in our office with ex H1-Bs that have been converted to
something like TFWs I imagine.

The only positive I see is the potential of working on something I like more
from a subject matter point of view.

~~~
trilila
Former immigrant to the uk from the eu, manager, head of and consultant. I
feel like your comment should not have been downvoted because it is and
understandable worry.

Here is why.

In the uk immigrants from non eu countries, and thus on restrictive work visas
(somewhat similar to h1b) usually earned way less than locals or eu citizens
because they had no option but to take any offer only to be allowed to stay in
the country. Example: ai engineers from south korea would earn 35k gbp a year,
while their uk or eu counterparts could earn well above 70k gbp.

Restrictive visas and abusive employers are a wage depressing mix, unfair to
both locals and new comers. My guess would be that if your employer underpays
your former h1b colleagues then that is not an employer you want to work for
because indeed your pay will stay low.

Eu citizens however were free to work without restriction and as such compete
on equal terms as locals. Much like in Canada where immigrants under express
entry are able to change jobs as they wish, eu citizens could change jobs as
they wish. The result was that instead of outsourcing to india or other
countries, uk companies suddenly started growing at home as they had plenty of
resources. Thus job opportunities and pay went up both for locals and eu
immigrants. As a hiring manager, demand was so high that either eu immigrants
or locals had to be payed more and more each year.

Similarly, in Canada, the more resources companies will find, the less they
will outsource and the more pay will go up over time.

As brexit is biting in and less devs are on the market, some of those
companies are now either outsourcing or opening new branches in other eu
countries to hire the same people as they would have in the uk, simply because
there are not enough devs left. This means less opportunities for locals.

Another thing is that more devs, means more ideas floating around, and that
means more skills you can get.

It can be frightening and if there are many abusive employers and restrictive
visas wages can go down, but something tells me they will go up as indeed
canada is a country with a north american business mindset. And if you mix
tech and capital the result will be job and pay growth which i have seen in
london/europe. You should embrace this if you want your pay to double in the
next 5 years. Mine did in london as when i moved there the “revolution” was
only starting and it was an awesome ride.

~~~
brooksidetiger
I am not an optimist. It doesn't matter to me if my salary doubles in the next
five years unless it improves my quality of life living here. After seeing the
major cities here change so much over the last 15 years, I am convinced that
an expanded presence of large tech companies will make things worse in every
metric I care about: housing; healthcare; affordable education;
transportation; etc. Great, I can afford the latest iPhone! Who cares?

~~~
trilila
Come to think, what you describe are exactly the issues i had around london.
Yay i could get a new iphone, but buying a property would mean an enormous
loan and the size of that property would have been tiny. Overcrowding was
another issue, trains were filled to the point where people would stick their
noses in other peoples armpits, roads jammed, loads of small shops with low
quality products, and ofc loads of crime. I ended up leaving, and one option
was toronto, but gave up at the thought it might become another london. Left
back for my home country, but my nature is to explore and experience new
places, it’s just that the thought of yet another london is unbearable. And
most tech jobs are centred around such cities. I just dont want to be a part
of the tech worker scene that “changes the world and are the best” but cant
afford even basic things in life such as owning a decent property with plenty
of room for kids to grow up happily. So i am working remote and working on a
side project. Maybe once it takes off i will retire in a small city in a
developed country and buy a big ass mansion and enjoy life as it should be.

------
Jylanthas
Toronto isn't to the north.

~~~
hollander
Of course it is, relative to SF, LA and NY.

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shdh
Salaries in Canada for tech pale in comparison to the United States.

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manishsharan
And we are also the NBA champions. So there is that as well.

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trilila
Curious if tech pay around canada is getting higher as a result of this, or if
consulting is becoming more of a “thing”.

~~~
human20190310
The article indicates $74,000 is the average in Toronto, which is roughly
_half_ of what it is in San Francisco. That's a shocking difference.

~~~
ZhuanXia
I advise anyone in Canadian tech to move to the states if they can. The rise
in pay is so enormous it overcomes all objections. Move from Canada to Austin
and you get higher pay, affordable housing because of zoning is not controlled
by a rent-seeking gerontocracy, and far less taxes, too. Also, Canada has many
indirect taxes in the form of crony capitalism. Grocery chains and phone
providers have extremely cushy relationships with regulators there, increasing
their ability to extract rents. Health insurance is not as big a deal as
everyone says, at least for people making tech salaries.

~~~
CosmicShadow
Except you are now living in the States and all that comes with it. Gun
violence + gun mentality, racism, ridiculous politics, and more. It's not
enough of a pay raise to make me consider the move. I'd consider doing remote
work with a US based company, taking the occasional trip down, but never
moving there. If you make 6 figure in Canada, those extra "taxes" and "costs"
aren't really an issue any more as they are only a few hundred bucks.

Maybe I'm just fed up with the US's bullshit to ever want to deal with them,
but I know lots of people who feel the same. If you are a fresh grad, it's
almost impossible to not go however, which sucks for us here, but that's just
how it is. Not all decisions are based on big piles of money. I also live in
Waterloo and have an awesome house, but if you are stuck in GTA or Vancouver,
then good luck I guess no matter what you do if you want real housing. Prices
here have also gone up a lot, but still affordable with a dev job.

~~~
endorphone
I'm a Canadian in the GTA who turned down numerous offers to move to the US
for jobs.

Because this is my home. It's where my family and friends are. I have a
sometimes misled sense of pride, etc. The same sorts of reasons most Americans
wouldn't want to move to Canada for a job. I mean, I'd be more likely to move
to Japan or France or something for a job because it's different enough to
make it novel.

But let's be real -- there are great areas all over the US. They have far more
weather and geographical diversity. There are great cities like Portland,
Austin, etc. It isn't all crime[1] or violence. And we're probably exposed to
US politics more here than the average American (given Canada's inferiority
complex and our profound focus on the US). And I've never had a problem with
Canadian healthcare, but if you're taking a job in the US you'll probably be
on a great plan that gets you great service there as well.

[1] - Especially given that property crime tends to be much worse in most
areas of Canada, and gun crime in the major cities is as bad as many American
cities.

~~~
geoka9
> gun crime in the major cities is as bad as many American cities

Is it, though? I can't remember the last time I heard of a gun crime in
Vancouver, but that's anecdotal, of course.

