ERP013 - Vancouver Tech Sector w/ Tyler Orton

Welcome to Evolve Radio where we explore the evolution of business and technology. Vancouver is often talked about as a future tech hub, already big companies like Microsoft and Amazon are expanding their presence in Vancouver. I reached out to our guest today to chat about the expanding tech sector in Vancouver. We discussed some of the opportunities and challenges with this growing sector of our local economy and how it fits into the global tech market. Tyler Orton is a reporter at Business in Vancouver newspaper who specializes in BC's tech sector. He also hosts BIV's daily show on Roundhouse Radio 98.3. Tackling headline news and interviewing the city's most notable names in business. So his unique perspective on the tech market should be make for an insightful interview. Also, if you enjoy Evolved Radio, be sure to subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher or wherever else you get your podcast. Now, let's welcome Tyler. And today on the podcast, we have Tyler Orton, who is a reporter with Business in Vancouver. Thanks for joining us, Tyler. Oh, thanks so much for having me on the show, Todd. I really appreciate taking the time today. We wanted to chat about the developing tech scene in Vancouver. How would you describe the tech scene in Vancouver as it's evolving? Yeah, well, you know what, it's still in its early stages relative to other tech scenes in the region when we think of Seattle, of course, and I think because we're so close to San Francisco, you know, there's a lot of people that want to be involved with the venture capitalist down there. So there's always these comparisons that are going on about the West Coast and how Vancouver stacks up, but I think at all the cities, the only one that maybe we're head ahead of right now is maybe Portland, but of course, I mean, they still have that Intel manufacturing plant right there. So they do have, you know, quite a bit of a base, especially kind of a corporate base that maybe we're lacking here in Vancouver. But I mean, I can't tell you enough, people are excited about the the tech scene here in the city right now and uh we have startup week uh going on next week in Vancouver. That's going to be big and uh earlier this week we actually had the Cascadia Innovation Summit. In which the governments of Washington State and British Columbia, they actually agreed to further collaborate. And try to develop this regional innovation corridor, which is pretty interesting. Yeah, I heard some some interesting outputs from that. I saw that they someone was advocating for an autonomous vehicle highway between Seattle and Vancouver. There was a couple of big hitters from Microsoft visiting some of the sessions in in Vancouver. I think Bill Gates as well as uh uh Satya Nadala were there as well. Yeah, those are two of the biggest hitters for Microsoft you could probably land for a conference, I'd say. Yeah, the the chairman of the board and the CEO doesn't get much bigger. Yeah. But yeah, I well and with regards to that, all that talk that was going on, you mentioned the driverless vehicles. And I think the transportation issue between Seattle and Vancouver is one of the probably the most talked about topics during that conference. Because look, uh yeah, we're only, you know, a two and a half hour drive, but that's if there's no traffic and if the border is completely clear. And a lot of the people in the tech community, they want closer ties between Seattle and Vancouver, but but it's just difficult because of transportation issues. So you mentioned the idea of a driverless highway. Um and I think that might have, you know, maybe more juice behind it than one of the other big things that they were touting throughout this Cascadia conference, which was the possibility of a high-speed rail between Seattle and Vancouver. I think it's just too cost prohibitive, uh it would be between 20 and 30 billion dollars US, that's the estimate that uh we heard about. Whereas, you know, driverless cars that would be potentially cheaper, you know, maybe in the next 10 to 15 years, as long as we can get people behind it. But really the the idea here is that they would have dedicated lanes between Seattle and Vancouver to help, you know, boost interest in driverless vehicles as well. So I I think maybe just the logistics behind this Vancouver, Seattle corridor. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be ironed out at this point. Yeah, it could act as a a really cool case study for autonomous vehicles. And and also solving a an interim problem, so. It'd be interesting to see how that develops. I appreciate your input on that. So you've been reporting on the tech sector for a couple of years and have been with Business in Vancouver longer than that. Um is how how have you seen the growth of the tech sector change? Because I feel that, you know, certainly in the last two years and maybe the last four, the uh the hockey stick curve is starting to accelerate. Do you have the same sense that the the growth is coming more quickly as Vancouver starts to be recognized as a tech hub? I I think you're totally right, we do see a lot of growth picking up. especially you look at companies like say traction on demand, which is a company that never actually took any investment from any uh person. Any venture capitalist at any point of its history. And and its growth keeps building and keeps building. But the big issue here in Vancouver, which I think is stymying uh the sector a little bit, it's just access to that venture capital. Not every single company needs it, but a lot more do. And I think that's going to be creating a bit of a bottleneck when it comes to more growth. Uh here in in this particular region, but I I do have to say. The other thing that could kind of be stymying growth just a little bit as well is just the access to talents. We have so much junior level talent, even maybe mid-level talent. But it it's just so senior levels of talent, you know, the people that have gone through the IPOs that have really scaled these businesses. We just don't have access to them the same way uh that maybe Seattle does or or San Francisco, which I I realize is kind of a dilemma that like all, you know, upcoming tech hubs have have to deal with. You know, everybody wants to compare themselves to say San Francisco and access to talent there. It's a difficult prospect no matter where you are. I would naturally ask if the cost of housing plays a a role in that. But I I don't think that that is any different than any other tech hubs, you know, Seattle, Silicon Valley, uh New York, London. All of the major world class cities that are being eyed as tech hubs have that similar issue of of cost of housing being so prohibitive. So, you know, I guess it is uh, you know, everyone's suffering from the same problems around developing that tech talent pool. Oh, absolutely and there is interesting you bring that up because during this Cascadia conference, there was a speaker from Seattle. And he said, look, if you look at the exchange rates, you know, Seattle versus Vancouver, it actually turns out that maybe Vancouver is a little bit. You know, just a slightly bit uh more economical to live in versus Seattle. But I think that of course we have to keep in mind the salaries in Vancouver, they are going to go for less versus Seattle because the size of the tech industry just isn't as big and it can't be as competitive as it is in Seattle right now. So that that is one important thing to consider. That's right. How do you feel are some of the most promising aspects of the tech scene in Vancouver, you know, the one that certainly is most visible to me is the development and the software side of things. Do you see other areas that are growing as as well in in your uh your work in the tech scene? Yeah, you know what, um PayPal, uh they've been working with the uh BC uh TIA, uh the BC Technology Industry Association and what they're trying to do is develop this sort of uh Fintech hub here in Vancouver. So obviously, Toronto is, you know, the financial capital of Canada, all the big wigs or most of the big banks are are based out of there, that's where most of the money is as well. So yeah, kind of Vancouver is this outlier, it's it's away from like maybe the financial scene. So that from what I hear from a lot of these people in the tech industry, that actually kind of is leading to more, I guess, innovation here, more ways to kind of uh make yourselves noticed. And I really do see the Fintech scene, well, a lot of the companies that I cover, I think more often than not, when we talk about the Vancouver tech scene, a lot of it has to do with, you know, financial technology for sure. Yeah, it's an exciting space for me as well. I'm I've been in uh following the the Bitcoin and blockchain and the general Fintech scene for a while. It's a it's a big one that I see as well developing locally, so that's exciting. I was just speaking to uh one startup uh based here BTL. And they just uh struck a partnership with Visa Europe to introduce, you know, like uh these blockchain pilots over in Europe. And so it's interesting that you have like these big giant financial institutions like Visa becoming more interested in stuff like blockchain and we're even having partnerships being struck uh here in Vancouver just to uh pursue those kinds of things. Yeah, interesting. So you've been covering the tech scene, you've kind of been all over this stuff. Is and uh has there been anything that has surprised you in your time covering it? Uh either around Vancouver itself or just uh the companies and technologies that you've come across? You know what, I I I think the the discussion hasn't changed so much when it comes to the issue of scalability. Uh here in Vancouver, I I think it keeps going back to that talent conversation. And maybe what surprised me a little bit though is how slow certain levels of government have been to react to this growing tech sector. It was only really with the last federal election when we had a government come in and realize, you know, Canada needs to diversify its economy a little bit more. The other thing to keep in mind is British Columbia, it's been insulated a lot from what's going on in the rest of Canada economically. Because uh it does have a more diverse economy than say Alberta or Saskatchewan. But it's been, I think, artificially propped up to a certain degree by the real estate sector here. Um we're now seeing signs that real estate sector is cooling in Vancouver and there are more efforts. I I guess that began back in December of 2015 by the the BC government to really make a big push for the uh the tech sector here. They announced the uh the launch of this $100 million BC Tech fund to help uh, you know, inject more capital here. So I guess if you're asking me what surprised me about this. It it's the fact that these guys they've been working at it for for such a long time and the government, the various levels of government are only just starting to wake up to it right now. And that's a little bit kind of concerning uh when you consider Canada. Is very much dependent on natural resources and you would think that the government would realize that just a diversified economy. Is obviously going to be much more ideal than uh what we have right now. Because it's still even from efforts from the government. Canada, we very much rely on the resources sector, no matter what. Yeah, it's an interesting problem because the technology sector. largely relies on innovation and something kind of unique and some angle. So it's difficult to to just sort of pump money and hope that people have an idea in order to to utilize that. I see it as sort of this this strange situation that even if you applied the money and didn't have sort of the the capability, the people with great ideas. And the people uh able to hire people in order to get those ideas coming to fruition. Uh it's a bit of a a bit of a puzzle where you need all the pieces to kind of line up together, right? I I totally agree, but but the good thing here though. Is is look, we had that oil shock about two years ago. Prices really haven't recovered, it's likely going to be, you know, five years down the road. Until we we can see some uh real recovery going on in in the oil sector. But in the meantime, these players in the oil sector, they need to, you know, cut down costs any way they can. And they're looking towards innovation to do that. So we are having a lot of people migrating from say Calgary over to Vancouver, uh, you know. So it's talent that we're absorbing and it's actually talent that we can kind of send back in a way with these innovative ideas, you know, to cut down costs uh for the uh tech sector as well. And we actually do see a big uh leap uh a lot of effort being made in the Vancouver uh clean tech sector as well. So I I I think, look, it's not great for the Canadian economy, but it actually does introduce some more opportunities that we wouldn't otherwise suspect uh maybe just two years ago. So that leads perfectly to my next question. And how do you see uh the evolution of the tech sector and how it impacts Vancouver? So you can kind of break out your crystal ball and this is, you know, certainly in the tech sector, this is unreasonably difficult. But uh, you know, what what do you see sort of transpiring or at least over the next couple of years? Because beyond that, I think it gets pretty difficult to anticipate how things are going to change. Yeah, I I I definitely see a lot more investment going on in the Fintech space. Uh not so much when it comes to consumer facing um products here in Vancouver. I I I just don't think there are enough companies, you know, focusing in on that. Uh so going forward, I I think the big thing that needs to change is is just access to capital. One of the companies I was speaking to recently was Front Funder in which they've created a uh platform uh for equity crowd sourcing or crowdfunding for uh startups. So just having this access to capital that wasn't there before. I think it's coming and I think people are kind of waking up to Vancouver on an international level when it comes to the tech scene. If it can continue to push its brand out there, I I do think there's going to be more access to capital. But I I really think that there's a lot of players here that are are stepping up and and really trying to push it, you know, to the forefront of, you know, just that international branding that it needs. Excellent. And do you see the uh the the regional, like you you talked a bit about the. local and regional governments, do you see them playing a participating role in that development and making sure that that that future gets realized? Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt about that. Except for the fact that come this spring in British Columbia, we are going to be having a provincial election. Uh it really depends and we're still waiting for, you know, the big policy announcements to come from every uh party. Uh the NDP, BC NDP, BC Liberals, of course, uh here going at it. Uh so the BC Liberals, they've already said that they do want to pursue this tech industry. I I have no doubt that the NDP would want to do the same, especially when it comes to say uh a lot of the innovations going on in the clean tech space. So I I don't think either of the big parties here have any choice but but to pursue this at this point. It would just kind of be uh politically untenable as well as economically untenable for them as well. that'll be interesting uh to see, you know, how that election affects things. And that I think will play a big role in setting the path over the next couple of years. So it'd be interesting to follow. Yeah. So as people are interested in uh seeing how things turn, you know, where can they find you, Tyler? And and your reporting so they can help keep tabs on on what's going on in the the Vancouver tech sector. Yeah, you know what, um I have the same uh social media handle for everything, whether it's Instagram or uh else Twitter. You can find me at Reporton, that's R E P O R T O N. And you can also just uh go to BIV.com. And uh you can read stories not just about tech, but uh as well as anything business related that's going on here in Vancouver and British Columbia. Very good. Well, I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us today, Tyler. Hey, Todd, thank you so much for having me on the show. It's a pleasure.