

New York is the greatest... and I don’t care what Antonio Garcia-Martinez says - davidbalbert
http://blog.hirehive.com/new-york-is-the-greatest-city-in-the-world-an

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riffer
Somewhat depressed to see that the newest marketing strategy for YC companies
is to imitate techniques rappers pioneered 15 years ago.

What are these guys thinking?

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moxiemk1
Indeed. Startups are great because it's a chance to stand on merits, on what
you can do and have done. Why waste time dissing eachother?

Just make your city the best.

~~~
davidbalbert
That's why we plan on moving back. A little writing doesn't hurt though. I
think a bit of pride and cheerleading can push New York to be better.

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pvg
Starting to wish for some articles about the iPhone/App Store or Erlang or
something...

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moultano
I think this is actually a fundamental problem with not having downvotes.
Tribalist things that would normally get half upvotes and half downvotes now
just get upvotes. It's the same thing with the iphone/android stories. With
downvotes, we'd be reading a lot fewer of them.

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mattlanger
But downvotes just as often (or more often, I'd argue) create exactly the
tribalism you describe. Restrict users to only a positive input mechanism and
you'll drastically reduce bullying and other gang behavior.

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moultano
I guess if one camp is clearly more popular than the other then it will win
out all the time, instead of both winning out all the time.

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mattlanger
I guess I don't see this being a problem "all the time" the way you do. Sure,
every so often you start seeing lots of articles about the same contentious
debate happening in a pretty tight echo chamber (or sometimes you start seeing
nothing but Erlang articles at PG's behest), but save for the occasional dud
most of what rises to the top around here seems pretty well worth my time.

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kscaldef
> New York is the capital of food, fashion, music, finance, diplomacy, culture
> and news

It's also full of humble and modest people ;-)

I appreciate the fine rantiness of the post (and the one it's responding to,
for that matter), but I have one serious criticism:

> The big things (tm) in tech right now are social, mobile, and local. These
> work best when you have a lot of people and a lot of stuff all mashed
> together. It’s not a coincidence that Foursquare is happening in New York
> and not Palo Alto.

The problem here is that you're building stuff that _only_ works in super-
dense urban areas like New York. We need local and social and mobile stuff
that works for the rest of the world too. If Foursquare's ambitions are
limited to NY that's legitimate, but your argument is sort of specious: that
Palo Alto is inferior because they aren't building applications that don't
actually work well in places like Palo Alto (let alone all the still-less
dense parts of the country).

Oh, and New York's food carts have nothing on Portland. So there!

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delackner
You are saying that NYC is an incubator for things that only work in super-
dense urban areas, and Palo Alto is a very different environment where
density-driven things don't work?

I have an impression that most of the rest of the world (that has
discretionary spending you might salivate over) lives in cities that resemble
NYC density much more than they resemble Silicon Valley endless low-density
sprawl. Let's find some numbers.

I compiled the following list of the world's 20 richest cities as of 2005 (1)
and next to each I have listed its population density rank and people/sqkm.

Tokyo 50 4750, New York 114 2050, Los Angeles 90 2750, Chicago 126 1500, Paris
69 3550, London 43 5100, Osaka 38 6400, Mexico City 27 8400, Philadelphia 155
1100, DC 250+, Boston 176 900, Dallas 148 1150, Buenos Aires 46 4950, Hong
Kong ~36 (not listed in same data sheet as it is a "country") 6349, San
Francisco/Oakland 104 2350, Atlanta 203 700, Houston 149 1150, Miami 121 1700,
Sao Paulo 25 9000, Seoul 6 16700,

(edit: couldn't get these lines to break no matter what, so just comma-
delimited them)

As of 2000, Mountain View had a density of 2264/sqkm, placing it actually
HIGHER than New York. What? You would spend half your life on Caltrans in
Mountain View with no car. In NYC you would spend half your life looking for a
parking place. I don't get it.

Does anyone have more meaningful numbers?

1: [http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest-
cities-2005.htm...](http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest-
cities-2005.html)

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kscaldef
It's a bad habit, but people (including me) often say "New York" when they
mean "Manhattan". The population density of Manhattan is 70,951/sq mi
(27,394.3/km2) according to Wikipedia.

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shazow
I don't necessarily agree with all the points, but this was definitely an
amusing post to read.

I think your feelings towards NYC are very similar with mine towards Toronto.
Both cities are very similar, holding for the density ratio (NYC is at least
x4 larger). I have complete faith in the Toronto startup community, though I
don't imagine it'll reach the Silicon Valley scale anytime soon. Despite that,
Silicon Valley's incredible density and concentration could be a disadvantage
for some as much as New York's and Toronto's diversity could be an advantage.

I imagine the startup scene and tech industry will continue growing
proportionally in hubs all over the world. Hopefully soon Silicon Valley wont
be the only place where you can raise money on a crazy idea from useful
investors with reasonable terms.

I also plan to resume my residence in Toronto someday.

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ryanb
The guy was an investment banker who had some sort of existential crisis when
he realized that he wanted to work for a startup.

Let's get over it.

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antongm
That's basically it.

~~~
ryanb
A lot of your points sounded more like i-banking culture vs startup culture to
me, but those are two very separate worlds.

An opinion piece from someone who's actually worked in the NY startup scene
would have been a lot more enlightening.

But best of luck either way.

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chaostheory
Hirehive, and the guys starting it, is pretty cool but I'm not sure why this
post was upvoted so high. It didn't really make (or attempt to make) a good
rebuttal to most of the points in Antonio's post. It's not like Antonio was
saying "NY sucks for everything". He was just saying it wasn't the ideal
environment for tech start ups, which is true imo.

The only two things I partially disagreed with Antonio on were on food and
cost of living. It's not impossible to find a cheap place to live with
roommates in NY, and people in NY take food seriously. I knew a lot of people
who cooked well; just as good as SF and the Bay Area or better.

~~~
davidbalbert
Well his words were a bit stronger than New York isn't "the ideal environment
for tech start ups" ;).

I think the real advantage that the valley has right now is mindshare. This
won't change without some prodding. The argument has to be made strongly for
New York if this is ever going to change.

~~~
chaostheory
I disagree. It's more than mindshare. New York does have a lot of good things
going for it, but it has one main weakness tech-wise: pragmatism.

"That's a dumb idea"

"Why build Z when X already exists?"

"How does this make money now or ever?"

Yes NY is less likely to have major disasters like web van, but for the same
reason it's also less likely to have a google. Only tech cultures that are as
crazy or crazier than SV can hope to beat it.

People in NY may be very open to stuff like fashion, but imo they're very
close minded when it comes to tech.

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rdouble
NYC Resistor is invite-only. I used to go to TechShop in Menlo Park, which had
CNC mills, 2 laser cutters, rapid prototyper, multiple shop bots, welding,
aluminum casting, a 3-D foam cutter, CNC vinyl cutter, industrial sewing
machines. and so forth. AFAIK, there is no equivalent in NYC (I am already a
3rd ward member... does not come close).

Does anyone know of a place in NYC like TechShop? I've heard SVA has a fab
lab, but it seems like you have to be an MFA student to get access.

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ybot
It doesn't quite fit the bill of replacing TechShop, but you should check out
Alpha One Labs (<http://www.alphaonelabs.com/>). It's a community hackerspace
in Brooklyn that follows radical inclusivity – anyone is welcome to join, and
as soon as they outgrow their current space they find a bigger one.

It's just getting off the ground, but there's a interesting group of people
there. Drop in for one of the weekly meetings, tuesdays at 7.

And they just got a laser cutter (which they'll also let you use it just for
asking!).

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sarvar
Seriously, who cares ? :)

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milesf
You can keep both NYC and Los Angeles. There's a much bigger world out there
than just two geographic area.

If I were single, I would be a digital bedouin so I could work in both New
York, LA and anywhere else on the planet.

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wangwei
If you are trying to do a life style start up, New York is probably a good
place. (i don't have anything against life style business). But you're trying
to do anything more ambitious, silicon vally is still the place to go.

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mattlanger
Whatta week! Like the startup gods put out an RFC for the SF/NYC rivalry!

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dminor
> Nick was living in 81 square feet in a 3 bedroom in a beautiful brownstone
> in Park Slope for under $800. Living out here is costing him more money.

Yes, but at least you get more than 81 square feet!

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jreposa
Well said. The absurdity of saying "most New Yorkers couldn’t fry an egg if
their lives depended on it" is what set me off. Also, the fact that I'm a
living contradiction to nearly all of Antonio's points.

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albertsun
Newest holy war in tech circles....

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azymnis
nice rebuttal, i'll grant you that!

