How Waterloo Became Silicon Valley's Favorite School

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How a cold, boring town became Silicon Valley's talent farm

FOR YEARS, sources I’ve spoken to from all corners of the Bay Area tech scene have said this exact phrase: Waterloo creates cracked engineers. They always emphasize cracked, a techie badge of honor for the freakishly talented, the kind who work absurd hours and build impossible things. As journalists do, I decided this meme ought to be investigated. After arriving on a red-eye flight, filming a chess match with Geoffrey Hinton, and touring Toronto’s graffiti alley, I found myself inside a broom closet with two University of Waterloo engineering students and a tank of helium. “We usually…

How Waterloo Became Silicon Valley's Favorite School

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