Mayor Gregor: 'Vancouver's Tech Ecosystem is Breaking Through and Turning Heads'

[Mr.HappySilp]

Mayor Gregor: 'Vancouver's Tech Ecosystem is Breaking Through and Turning Heads' - Techvibes.com

Last night Techvibes hosted the Tech Fest, a hiring fair for technology startups in Vancouver.

The sold-out crowd filled the venue with high energy throughout the night as hundreds of eager job seekers learned about more than 200 available positions from 10 of the city's best employers in tech.

"Vancouver is loaded with talent," said Mayor Gregor Robertson during his Tech Fest kickoff speech. "Vancouver has got serious buzz right now and we're getting a lot of attention as a centre of innovation and for our incredible tech community. We're breaking through and turning a lot of heads."

Robertson pointed out that here are over 80,000 jobs in technology, more than oil and gas, forestry, and mining combined. He added that there are about 4,000 jobs being added per year right now.

According to the mayor, Vancouver has more entrepreneurs per capita than any city in North America. "It's a super exciting time for our city," Robertson affirmed.

Boris Mann, an entrepreneur and the managing director of Full Stack, agreed with Robertson in his follow-up speech, though acknowledged that there is still plenty of room for improvement. Still, Vancouver has one key advantage according to him: it's an extremely livable city.

"What's the answer to the question: if I could live anywhere in the world, where would I live?" Mann asked. "For me, that answer actually is Vancouver. People like living here. Now it's our job to build a tech ecosystem around that."

Learn about future Tech Fest events here.

Sigh I am not even sure he knows what he is saying......

[4444]

I really find that what the media says and what is really happening are a far distance apart.

Also, any numbers or stats that politicians state are likely manipulated or not as one would usually read them to be.

It's a bit like 1984 with our media here. Must take all with a grain of salt from any local media outpost.

[dat_steve]

"Vancouver has more entrepreneurs per capita than any city in North America"

Everyone calls themselves an entrepreneur nowadays. Pretty much every Macbook wielding gastown coffee shop hipster will respond with 'I run my own startup' when asked what they do for work.

[m3thods]

As someone in the industry, I can definitely vouch for the fact that there are a lot of said jobs. Start-ups come from everywhere, and require additional talent to grow. Vancouver's proximity to Redmond and Silicon Valley really make it a hot-bed for technology companies.

That said, it's pretty tough to find something stable AND well-paying. The latter are almost always south of the border if you're willing to move. Even starting jobs at MS in Redmond pay more than most stating positions here locally. Silicon Valley? Even better. The problem is with competition. If you don't stand out, you're not working for the big boys. The problem with local startups, aside from competition, is that they could fold at a moment's notice. If you're lucky though, the startup you work for gets bought up by one of the big boys. But with that comes another type of uncertainty. Look at the recent Pixar closure. When it opened, it was touted as "just the beginning".

I was fortunate to find a local office that's fun to work for, pays somewhat well, and looks like it isn't going anywhere for the next 10 years *knock on wood*. I have friends that work for major companies like SAP, Ernst and Young (who knew!), MS, Amazon, Apple, so if you look hard enough, there are work opportunities everywhere. Locally, Telus hires a ton of new grads every year into a neat program that exposes you to all aspects of their technology-related positions, and even management. Almost every company nowadays has a tech team that needs talent. Plus, software programming is almost always at the or near the top of "top job" lists because companies have learned to be super flexible with their talent, otherwise they will just walk to another company.

It's a great sector to get into. With the basic training in school, you could expand your knowledge almost infinitely, as the sector is forever changing. As it was my "second" choice in university, I do wish I could go back in time and make it my priority in order to better set myself up for the future. Whenever people ask me what to do in university, I either tell them to do what they love to do, or settle with computer science :P

[k3lv]

Originally Posted by Boris Mann

Still, Vancouver has one key advantage according to him: it's an extremely livable city.

lol...

[Armind]

[multicartual]

Originally Posted by dat_steve

Everyone calls themselves an entrepreneur nowadays. Pretty much every Macbook wielding gastown coffee shop hipster will respond with 'I run my own startup' when asked what they do for work.

I consider myself an entrepreneur and, shit, you're right... many of the people down here are entrepreneurs. I can think of about 20 people I know who fit that bill and work in media. They also make a shitload of money! I've learned quite a bit about what I need to do and where I want to be from the socializing I've done downtown over the last few years.

Try not to knock the guy who's just starting out with entrepreneurship, today's starving bearded hipster with black rim glasses and a macbook air could be tomorrow's snapchat or whatever, even though many entrepreneurs will end up being baristas.

[4444]

I wonder if we're in trouble as it feels a lot like 2000 mark 2. Comparisons are being made a lot more nowadays, from stupid valuations, to all the MacBook wielding hipsters claiming to be CEOs of startups)

If we have another dot com bust (whether more mild than 2000), what will happen to all these jobs?

Look at mining right now, no money, no jobs, dead industry - and a lot of people kept on saying "mining super cycle" - all that talk seems to be over now.

I don't like some of moonbeams comments (especially the most entrepreneurs per capital how is that quantified? By definition you can't quantify it as someone can be an entrepreneur and still have a job, equally every douchebag barista claims to be working on the nest big thing - I know plenty like this, none of them have the ingenuity, vision, or charisma to be a success - I'll admit that I don't have what it takes to be an entrepreneur) - moonbeam appears to be more and more of an idiot saying random things each time he opens his mouth.

I know some very talented and well connected people (who literally know, or can get introduced to, anyone in town) who have worked on some projects that sound like pretty good ideas, got good people behind the project, worked hard on it, clients, all that... But in the end,just didn't work out... Don't think you'll hear Gregor warn of these risks or that, as said above, there are way more and way better paying jobs just south of the border.

Nice attempt to sell Vancouver, Gregor, but you're better at selling it to the Chinese

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp

Still, Vancouver has one key advantage according to him: it's an extremely livable city.

[BBMme]

Didn't Google open their doors in vancouver and they are specializing in security?
Posted via RS Mobile

[multicartual]

Originally Posted by 4444

equally every douchebag barista claims to be working on the nest big thing - I know plenty like this, none of them have the ingenuity, vision, or charisma to be a success

...yet


There are many people who hit it big after a string of failures, the key is to not give up

[rsx]

didn't a major gaming studio close down recently?

[m3thods]

^ Yup it was EA's PopCap and QuickLime. Rockstar closed its studios here last year.

Gaming is not really a good place to be in general, from what I hear. You'd have to REALLY love it, and be extremely good at what you do in order to rise the ranks and not toil in lower-level development. Apparently the only studio worth working for unless you're upper management is Valve. Gaming is extremely volatile with iOS and Android taking a huge cut of traditional console business. And they're one of the poster-children for long hours and huge stress in the tech industry.

But a friend of mine who works at EA head office in Burnaby absolutely loves it, and judging by the activities and facilities there, they really offset the stress/uncertainty with some kick-ass perks.

[4444]

Originally Posted by multicartual

...yet


There are many people who hit it big after a string of failures, the key is to not give up

Agreed, you need to be a certain type. I just don't think being in Vancouver increases your chances of success, but don't let moonbeam know I said this.

[noclue]

Vancouver's hard for a start up scene because although corporate taxes here are pretty competitive there are barely any office space for rent that is inexpensive since everyone is making condos, yeah it doesnt matter when you start out in your bedroom but once it gets going you need space. I think burnaby will fare better.

Plus there are barely any angel or venture capital investors here, you have to fly down to SF. Also most "hipster"-entrepreneur here don't know jack shit about raising capital. "Oh you need to sign my NDA first" every idiot has a good idea it's how you execute it.

[trancehead]

agreed,

too many people with hot air coming out of their asses
not enough people who are actually able to command a computer

[josayeee]

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp

Mayor Gregor: 'Vancouver's Tech Ecosystem is Breaking Through and Turning Heads' - Techvibes.com

According to the mayor, Vancouver has more entrepreneurs per capita than any city in North America.

His sugar coated way of saying there are very few large corporations in Vancouver. Mostly SMEs.

I really feel like trolling his facebook pages...

[will068]

I hope what this media report says about job creation is correct. Being in the tech industry now for 8 years (since I finished school), this year is the first year in 4 years that we did not have a massive re-org ( I hope so anyways,last year, we laid off people 1 week before christmas. They were senior staff that were getting paid too much. By the way, I work for a 40 billion dollar multinational. I got old coworkers in my LinkedIn still looking for work. I got my mom asking me if we have openings for her friend's son who finished computing engineering 2 years ago. EA took out the whole team involved in making nba live because that franchise is terrible.

There's a lot of tech talent in yvr alright. Some of them even from the tech bubble in 2000-2002. That's why you see so much folks lining up for hootsuite's open house, or even this tech vibes event.
Posted via RS Mobile

[4444]

One other beef I have is that hootsuite just gets too much attention. It's one successful Vancouver start up. 1.

How many billion dollar valued local start ups are there in Seattle and Silicon Valley since the dot com bubble?

And while ppl want to live in Vancouver, in Canada, yes. But I used to work for a consulting practise, and we saw business owners constantly enquiring about, and acting on, their options for moving to California (them and their operations) - it was always rich business owners, and it was a steady stream - certainly says something to me.

Vancouver is beautiful, it has a small start up scene, it has a huge pool of talent - but shut the fuck up moonbeam. I wish moonbeam had a competent mayoral competitor.

[Lomac]

Originally Posted by noclue

Vancouver's hard for a start up scene because although corporate taxes here are pretty competitive there are barely any office space for rent that is inexpensive since everyone is making condos, yeah it doesnt matter when you start out in your bedroom but once it gets going you need space. I think burnaby will fare better.

Plus there are barely any angel or venture capital investors here, you have to fly down to SF. Also most "hipster"-entrepreneur here don't know jack shit about raising capital. "Oh you need to sign my NDA first" every idiot has a good idea it's how you execute it.

Funny you mention SF. A friend of mine, who cut his teeth working on the original Counterstrike mod before it was bought by Valve, has been pretty successful as an app designer while working out of Vancouver. However, as you mentioned, he did notice that there are very few investors locally, so he and his design team (about 20 of them) all moved out to San Francisco after being offered a great investment by a company out there. His comments about staying locally while trying to expand aren't exactly something PC or PG-friendly, but they basically amount to "Good fucking luck trying to expand a tech company while staying in Vancouver."

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by 4444

but shut the fuck up moonbeam. I wish moonbeam had a competent mayoral competitor.

you don't know how often this exact phrase runs through my head when i read the paper.

[4444]

Originally Posted by Lomac

Funny you mention SF. A friend of mine, who cut his teeth working on the original Counterstrike mod before it was bought by Valve, has been pretty successful as an app designer while working out of Vancouver. However, as you mentioned, he did notice that there are very few investors locally, so he and his design team (about 20 of them) all moved out to San Francisco after being offered a great investment by a company out there. His comments about staying locally while trying to expand aren't exactly something PC or PG-friendly, but they basically amount to "Good fucking luck trying to expand a tech company while staying in Vancouver."

A good friend of mine works at hootsuite (Though for those thinking it's god's gift to employment, he actually is looking to leave - and he has what appears to be a great job) says that what the hootsuite shareholders want to do is make a paypal mafia up in Vancouver, that is, to make a large number of very wealthy tech types who will then go and invest I local tech start ups... Just like what happened with all the PayPal guys.

Problem is PayPal is a monster, hootsuite isn't - don't get me wrong, it's flirting with a $1b valuation, if I read right in recent funding rounds (though in very frothy time wrt valuations in the tech space), but then again, Vancouver is a mini city, so everything will be smaller here vs Silicon Valley