Predicting the Future Dispersion of Silicon Valley

In Canada, the pandemic accelerated IT/IQ’s innovation and we launched a new branch, IT/IQ Remote Teams, to help companies throughout the world adapt to remote work.

Outside of Canada, the pandemic is also accelerating the dispersion of Silicon Valley. With renewed antitrust pressure from US Congress and the pandemic accelerating remote teams, Silicon Valley is facing disruption to its very core.

The culprit is a mad-dash being made by many of the Valley’s leading companies to permanently lock in the COVID-led shifting to remote work. If location no longer matters, and tech talent begins to flee the Bay Area for more affordable residences, what might be next for the industry?

A Shift in the Heart of Silicon

CEOs and industry titans pour their time, money, and resources into creating ideal “workspaces” and “hubs” to foster innovation. In these sacred spaces, up-and-coming talented tech whizzes are afforded every luxury in the promotion of collaboration. With every amenity at your fingertips, the logic is that the likelihood of producing the next greatest app or generation-defining platform increases to the point where such investments pay for themselves.

Cities everywhere have attempted to copy the Valley’s history of producing incredible tech giants for decades, but so far, no one has. Like history’s other cities of great innovation— Athens in 450 B.C., Hangzhou in the 12th century, and Florence in the 16th century — Silicon Valley is the world’s force for the greatest accomplishment of its age: information technology.

The future, however, seems to exclude the face-to-face encounters and embrace the remote dispersion of its tech talent. What will Silicon Valley lose? And how are they adapting to this reality?

Work-from-Home vs. Work-from-Anywhere

Some Silicon Valley heavyweights like Twitter have embraced the “Work From Anywhere” approach. Slack said more or less the same to its workers, and the trend was made official by industry titan Mark Zuckerberg, who announced that he expected up to half his employees would become permanently remote. When Zuckerberg rolled out Facebook’s new long-term remote policy in July 2020, he indicated that employees leaving Silicon Valley would also bid farewell to their Silicon Valley salaries. Other companies such as Cisco are slowly bringing back employees into the office, albeit with extravagant tech to keep them safe.

So, will tech stay in Silicon Valley? It might depend on if tech talent values flexibility over top-dollar salary.

To See The Future, Look North

In Canada, our goal is to be ahead of the curve. This proves to be a tough task, as technology innovation disrupts every industry and creates competition where it didn’t previously exist.

With the potential dispersion of Silicon Valley, Canada stands first in line for embracing tech talent. Besides immigration policies and affordable living costs, industry titans like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and more north of the border. These multimillion-dollar industry giants in technology, life sciences, and automation continue to draw from our deep labor pool, and there are no signs of this slowing down. Canada will continue to welcome international talent and businesses to ensure their future in the technology industry remains bright.

Your Partner in Technology Staffing

IT/IQ serves our clients, candidates, and the entire technology industry across Canada, with locations in Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. Our newest offering, IT/IQ Remote Teams, provides global tech talent at Canadian prices, all on a single invoice. Visit us at it-iq.com to learn more.

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