On the TechVancouver stage ×1
First seen on the TechVancouver stage in 2019. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Colin ↗
In their words
When we started PMC there was no ecosystem. There was one VC — that was Ventures West. We had a lot of technology and not much marketing.
About 25 companies come through a year. It's a very non-Canadian program: every session, two get kicked out. It's kind of like Survivor, and there's 10 left at the end.
Quick answers
Who is Colin Harris?
A Vancouver semiconductor entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded PMC-Sierra, led it as CEO from 2005 to 2015, and is a founding partner of Creative Destruction Lab's Vancouver site, where he mentors on the Climate stream.
What did Colin Harris talk about at TechVancouver?
In July 2019 he and William Johnson of Innovate BC mapped Vancouver's tech ecosystem for founders trying to work out who to approach. Harris described what the city looked like when PMC-Sierra started, when there was one venture fund in the province.
What happened to PMC-Sierra?
It was a Nasdaq-listed semiconductor company that, as Harris put it on stage, was briefly the second most valuable company in Canada during the 2000 internet boom, then collapsed with it and rebuilt through storage. Microsemi acquired it in 2016.