For Tech Start-Ups, New York Has Increasing Allure(nytimes.com) |
For Tech Start-Ups, New York Has Increasing Allure(nytimes.com) |
What matters it the culture of a city or environment. NYC's culture is not tech startup, it's finance and media. It's foreign investors buying large buildings and apartments to park their black money. It's gritty and boisterous, which can be fun, but it's not nurturing.
Sure there will be a few hits, but there will be a few hits from many cities around the country. That doesn't mean they are going to become the next tech mecca and take down the Valley.
I think of any ecosystem as having energy. More things happen when molecules bounce around and interact. That energy is capital.
I think it's great that NY has 'allure', but the distribution of capital amongst the various regions follows a really clear, winner-take-all power law. SV is king and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
[1] https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=region
(I moved from NYC to SF to start a company.)
Another big reason I see that NYC will catch up is that you just dont need that much to start a company. And also VCs are beginning to have offices in both areas.
The only real difference is the ease with which you can meet someone really important in SV. You can get an introduction to PG through one of his startups within the week if you can show you have some traction and get the respect of some founder he has backed.
And all said and done, startups are realizing that investors dont matter - creating a product that people want to use is the bottom line. If the costs are low and you can afford it, you might as well forget about having to deal with VCs and investors except for advice.
There is a lot of media in New York, which includes internet media. Also, I think there are a lot of bloggers in NYC. Although, I don't see evidence the New York tech boosters claims match reality.
I suspect it's basically classic social proof seeking behavior, wherein individuals will try to get their friends to do what they are doing (this "validates" the individual's choices)
I thought that was the tilt of the entire blog/reddit/HN-osphere.
In terms of finding top talent, as long as a company is building products with tangible value and the CEO can outline the immediate ROI for customers, those that flock to Wall Street are there to be had. The East Coast also has our own top universities, the originals - Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, Penn, Carnegie Mellon - who are each producing phenomenal mathematics and CS professionals with East Coast ties. The ability to staff talent is directly correlated to the quality of the company's product and founders.
The Hacker culture is already awesome but keeps getting awesomer. People are hanging out, sharing idea and building things because they want things to be awesome.
Other cultures have vibrant communities too. Designers. Thinkers. Financial. Branding. Services. Everyone has a network that's accessible and self-selected into outgoing, aggressive creators.
It's not often that people are so motivated, but it's happening in NYC right now.
If the stock market picks up again I think that the tech scene will start receding. It is hard for quite a few people to turn down the pay that banks offer for the uncertain economic rewards of a startup.
Not so sure about that. Once bitten, twice shy. I work for the man in NYC but regardless of how the stock market does, my interest in tech. and startups will not recede.
If you are downvoting me, would you mind explaining why? Do you not agree?