<i>On the issue of tech sector, U Waterloo obviously puts out many great students.</i><p>I absolutely agree.  But YC doesn&#x27;t need to be where the university is.  I mean, people apply to YC from all over the world, not just from the bay area.<p><i>Vancouver is likely even more costly to live than SV.</i><p>Relative to average income, yes.  But that&#x27;s just because Vancouver doesn&#x27;t have much in the way of high-wage industries.  In an absolute sense, Vancouver is much cheaper than SV.<p><i>KW (and southern Ontario in general) is a great place with warm weather 6 months per year and access to the 3rd largest city in North America.</i><p>Assuming you mean Toronto, it&#x27;s only 3rd if you take &quot;North America&quot; to mean Canada+USA and take &quot;largest&quot; to mean &quot;population within city limits&quot;... a definition which says that Vancouver is smaller than Winnipeg, and San Francisco is smaller than Jacksonville.  Based on metropolitan populations Toronto ranks 8th, between Washington DC and Houston.<p>But I would say that Toronto would be my second choice out of Canadian cities.  The size definitely helps; I don&#x27;t think it compensates for being three time zones away and twice as hard to reach from SFO though.