A shout out to our brothers and sisters North of the border in Toronto. Turns out, it isn’t all hockey and maple syrup up there; in fact, there is a burgeoning tech expansion in Canada’s largest city. Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, Amazon and Meta (formerly Facebook) all have a presence but others are following, including, Pinterest, Stripe and Klarna (a Scandinavian payments company and shame on you if you don’t know the others). With local university and government money and Canada’s lenient immigration policy, Toronto has become the third-largest tech hub in North America behind Silicon Valley and New York. And to some in the US who may not know, Toronto isn’t a fly-by-night city with nothing to do: nearly 50% of Toronto’s residents were born outside the country making it a culturally diverse city with a potpourri of splendid cuisine. It is the fourth largest city by population on the continent (with about 3 million people) behind only Mexico City, NY and LA with a deep pool of talented tech researchers and engineers.
For tech workers in Toronto, the government is on your side recently passing a law that explicitly bars companies from enforcing noncompete clauses in employment contracts. Take that Silicon Valley—Toronto is run by a bevy of promiscuous tech workers free to mingle with whatever company tickles their fancy. Is it working though? Simply put, yes. There is some cool tech stuff happening in Toronto like work on “neural networks” to power self-driving cars and digital assistants. Or the cutting-edge AI work that specializes in technology that helps machines understand the natural way people write and talk. There are some concerns about salary creep which may price companies out of the market and, despite all the positives, it’s worth keeping the numbers in perspective. In 2021 and 2022, investors pumped $132 billion into Silicon Valley tech start-ups compared to $5.4 billion in Toronto. Baby steps Toronto, baby steps…
Metz, Cade. “Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town.” The New York Times, 21 Mar. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/technology/toronto-tech-boom.html?smtyp=cur.
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