Well, there were other interesting non-sequiturs, like walkability being important.
I honestly do agree there, but as we all know here, there's VC and angels who have all their investments clustered around Castro and Uni in the valley, so that they can walk to all their portfolio companies in the span of one day.
Good summary. All in all I don't get why the SV comparison is even appropriate. SV is will always be a specific mix of elements. Each one NYC picks up will be replaced by another nit that shows how NYC != SV.
What is true is that NYC is becoming a place that matters for technology businesses. We could talk all day about scale (corps vs. startups vs. schools vs. many other things) but the bottom line is that NYC has a real technology sector and it's growing.
Agreed. Especially on how the comparison isn't appropriate. Thank you for expressing what I couldn't find the words to say.
I would also ask why compare at all? These are apples and oranges. Let Silicon Valley have its claim to fame and don't try to make NYC fit into this mold that it clearly doesn't belong in. NYC has its special qualities. So let's applaud them and encourage them to keep doing what they do best and let them develop their own culture or claim to fame instead of comparing the two.
That depends on your opinion of what a good place to live is. Some people like the city. Some especially like the culture NYC offers. Some of us, me included, would say that NYC is overrated, everyone there has this attitude that their shit doesn't stink because they live in "the greatest city since the dawn of civilization", it literally smells bad, it's over crowded, elitist, and so on. But some would take those same opinions and word them positively and just like it there.
NYC has its downsides just like every place on earth does. Paradise doesn't exist. We each have to find or make out own and I can respect that some people love New York even if I don't. The suburbs can be thought of as full of soccer moms, yuppies, the unhip or less intelligent, there's nothing to do, everything is far away, and on and on. Some like it. It's a good place to raise a family or at least there's a good argument for it.
It's all relative. Everything is relative. Very few things aren't.
I'm trying to figure out why Bloomberg is trying to import a really great Tech university or create one from scratch rather than expanding or building off of NYU or Columbia.
The demand for tech education is pretty high in NYC right now. I'd imagine those schools are already doing things on their own. I'm sure he's hedging his bets that either those schools will come around on their own or something new will fill this gap.
Most likely because it's trendy? I know that sounds ignorant so let me put it another way - Bloomberg is more of a capitalist than a mayor and he always will be. There's a lot of hype around SV startups and VCs are flocking to fund every little startup they can find for better or worse. The Wall Street types aren't always the best at independent thinking and they see this going on and so they feel that since New York is the self proclaimed "Greeatest City in the World" they have to keep up. Think about it in terms of the recent market situation. All the big banks were pouring money into bad investments without really looking at the consequences. Some even knew they were going to see a crash eventually but did it anyway. It's this kind of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality that pervades the business and finance types everywhere but it's very pronounced in NYC. That's most likely why they want a dedicated Tech university. To keep up with Stanford and be part of the cool tech movement.
NYC has its charms, but it has its nightmarish qualities too.
People tend to live in places convenient to their first job. Getting around for work is a nightmare unless you live in an area served by the right public transit connections.
Now if you are young/poor enough or rich enough to live in Manhattan, it's a magical place.
Also keep in mind that the industry clusters in NYC aren't what they once were. Finance is the king kong of NYC industry.
Silicon Valley had a totally different kind of industry cluster -- you had a torrent of Federal dollars flowing in for defense work, which ultimately concentrated technical talent and created all sorts of spinoff industrial activity. NYC is a great place to make money, but it isn't the same as SV.
I absolutely love NY, but I think if I lived there I'd be too distracted by the glitz or too envious of all the rich i-bankers to do a startup.
I live in Boulder, which IMO has a the perfect combo of livability and talent & resources need to launch a tech company. It will never be Silicon Valley, but that also means it will never have the traffic. It's really nice to be able to walk or ride a bike to most meetings. And every day I seem to bump into fellow entrepreneurs while in line at the coffee shop a couple blocks from my office.
Having lived in the SF Bay Area (not Silicon Valley, but we were in "Silicon Gulch" in the 1990s) and now living in New York, I have to say that I do not see NY as the next Silicon Valley.
It takes more than just access to VC. The cultures are too different in the two areas.
New York has always been about commerce, literally since its founding as New Amsterdam. Finance is in the DNA, it's in the air, it's in the water. What is not here is a culture that values technology and knowledge for its own sake.
We don't have a Stanford or an MIT here. There's no feeder for the kind of thinking and culture you need to create a Silicon Valley.
The reason Xerox PARC flourished is because it was far away from the East Coast headquarters, and had the autonomy it needed to pursue research. If it had been in or near NYC, it's likely the pressure to come up with only short-term applied innovations would have been too great.
I get that Bloomberg wants to get a great tech university, but it will be born out of the desire to see more money, not the desire for knowledge for its own sake.
New York City will remain a financial engine, and continue to be a great place for VC and technology to come together, but it won't be the next Silicon Valley.
We don't have a Stanford or an MIT here. There's no feeder for the kind of thinking and culture you need to create a Silicon Valley.
No, but NYC is arguably the (or at least a) world capital for art, theater, and fashion. As technology becomes easier to manipulate without requiring an EE or CS degree (witness the rise of low-barrier tools such as Rails or Arduino) I expect to see more tech start-ups that are driven by artists and designers who use slick, sophisticated, commodity technology.
> No, but NYC is arguably the (or at least a) world capital for art, theater, and fashion.
Also food, music, import/export, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and the already mentioned finance. There are other industries as well, including all the tangential industries that are fed by the leading ones. This cornucopia of leading industries creates a very healthy environment for cross-industry innovation.
More != better or even good. I mean, I'd consider thinking of what really qualifies as a startup? Is it the guy who's reading PHP for Dummies in his undies in his little apartment with delusions of grandeur about how he's the next Zuckerberg? Is it guys who will probably fail but have a few VCs supporting them? Is it somewhere in between? The words 'startup' and 'entrepreneur' get thrown around carelessly these days and I'd argue that defining the post's definition of these would help us answer the question posed in the title.
I think Silicon Valley is known for its numbers equally as much as its successes whereas maybe we're just counting startups in other places and comparing them with a bias toward connecting sheet volume with the title of "Startup Capital of wherever".
I live in Chicago and only visited NYC once so the only knowledge I have on the topic is what I read about the two places (Silicon Valley and NYC, that is). That's why I need more info in order to have a solid opinion. Until the author gives me that information I take the post as just kind of entertainment fodder.
Also, I was confused about the comments regarding sprawl in the last paragraph in the PG quote. Is sprawl only something the suburbs have? I'd think New York Has just as much sprawl if not more. The difference being that their sprawl takes a different form. Sprawl to me is a vast expanse of shops and malls and just businesses every which way on every which street. I'm the suburbs we have our main roads filled with strip malls and such and in NYC there is just mile after mile of buildings filled top to bottom with the same kind of businesses minus the parking lots and hillbillies. Also, personal opinion, NYC is dirty and literally reals of garbage even on fifth avenue or just outside the trump building and even on the edge of central park. It reminded me of a slightly larger, dirtier version of Chicago. Didn't much care for it.
I'm a bit biased because I live in Columbus but I'm seeing a huge shift in the tech scene here and it's growing very rapidly. There is a meetup for every night, hacker spaces everywhere, and everyone is either working at a startup or starting their own. Columbus is a powerhouse for biomedical research, banking and insurance and noone here has trouble finding a job in IT.
There was another recent article I read(but can't find) about an influx of people from the Bay area to Columbus and I've met a few of these guys. Most of them compare the culture here as slower than San Francisco but similar. Everyone wants to build something. People are coming to Columbus because the tech talent is solid, there is venture capital aplenty and the costs of living are very low.
I am in Columbus as well. It does feel like something is brewing, but I'm not sure how it will end up since the mentality is a lot more conservative. My info is in my profile, if you're interested in catching up.
NYC isn't likely to be the next Silicon Valley if we're talking about where the next Apple, Intel or HP will spring up. There is too much of a premium on space and too little hardware expertise.
But the hot Valley companies these days are in software or services. There is no reason why a cluster of nerds in NYC can't create enough momentum to build a rival culture.
Honestly I think the thing that'll do more for startups in NYC than any initiative or a tech university satellite campus is the presence of Google (disclaimer: I work for Google). It's already had an effect on startup locations and office vacancy rates [1].
I'm not sure what our exact numbers are here but you'd have to figure there are at least 1,000 engineers in this office. That's quite a pool of talent.
While the weather in particular is glorious in the Bay Area, NYC certainly does have its charms. In the Bay Area you're living in suburbia and commuting. There are of course significant startups in SF (particularly SoMA) so you can get the "city living" life if you happen to work for those but far more are located in Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Cupertino, San Jose, etc.
Thing is, many people I know who live in SF still own cars. One big attraction of NYC is you simply don't need to own a car. Factor in a car and IMHO it's cheaper to live in Manhattan than SF (and many parts of the Bay Area).
What's more, I have a 7 minute walk to work.
That all being said, SV is in no danger of losing its place as the beating heart of tech. Even with an office this large (Google), the mothership in Mountain View still has an irresistible call and, in all honesty, for your career (at Google) you'd be better off there than anywhere else.
The other thing that will help (IMHO) is what a mess the finance industry is in and the fact that, generally speaking, it's a soul-destroying experience to work in finance (I speak from experience).
What New York could really benefit from is a homegrown huge ($5B+) success. Of course there's no real planning for that.
I'd say having Google in NYC is probably a negative for startups. Most of the good talent gets soaked up by the big G,
And your 7 minutes to work as an engineer, is actually a bad thing for startups. If a programmer lives in Manhattan(sub ~50s st), then he is paying ~$3000/mo for an apartment. If you are stuck with a $3K fixed cost every month, it's hard to quit a job to go do your own thing. Granted, you can always get a cheaper place, but most programmers with 2-3+ years experience seem to be making ~$100K+ in NYC, so they tend to justify spending a bit more to be closer to work
He could be paying far less than that for rent: I live on the upper west side of Manhattan and pay $1000/month and had a 15 minute commute before I switched jobs. Further, somebody could also live and work in Brooklyn and pay more like $700/month in rent. (All of these figures are for apartments with roommates).
I started looking recently, and 2-3K seems to be the general price range for decent 1 bedrooms. Sure you can pay less, but that usually involves living in the closet or in a rundown old building...and even then you only save a few hundred bucks.
Seems like prices really shot up recently, I looked about 5 months ago, and the rates were quite a bit cheaper
If start ups only refer to businesses where technological innovation drives competitive advantage, then New York will have a tough time. The future Googles, Intels, Apples etc fit in this category.
But if we include businesses which are technology enabled, then I think New York has a much better chance. Companies like Gilt Group, Kickstarter and Tumblr don't rely on technology to drive their competitive advantages.
If the technology component becomes commoditized due to ease of access (rails frameworks, Heroku, mobile frameworks etc), then competitive advantages will shift to community building, branding and design.
New York has the advantage of being a dense city (good for location-based mobile apps). It has a rich history of being the entrepreneurial home of fashion, media, retail and finance. New York based start ups will have an advantage in building communities around these industries.
AllTheImportantBits
1. NYC has overtaken Boston as a VC hub.
2. Bloomberg is trying to get a really great Tech University.
3. Living in New York is very attractive compared to living in Suburbia with great weather (Silicon Valley).
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