

Missing YouTube founder flees facebook froth in valley, seeks next prodigy in midwest - mlearmonth
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/missing-youtube-founder-flees-facebook-froth-in-valley-seeks-next-prodigy-in-midwest

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babul
Though all I know about Jawed Karim is what I’ve read about him on the
internet over the years, or what he has written, I really respect his level-
headedness and disposition to hype.

The fact he is not a media-whore, went back to academia even though he could
have made more $$$ going back to YouTube when things started taking off, and
now actually, and I believe genuinely, wants to help other founders who may
not be exposed to as much opportunity (principally due to their background and
geography it seems) makes me like him more.

He used to have some good reads on his site (<http://www.jawed.com/>), but
sadly they have all gone now (a consequence of fame, and hence too many
eyeballs on his thoughts, not being in-line with his character?).

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pxlpshr
_Silicon Valley has a lot of noise, a lot of hype. People are very excited
about all of the Facebook stuff, Facebook applications. It's just been a huge
hype over the last year when actually ... there isn't really that much value.
It's just a bubble. It's almost a distraction._

I think this is absolutely true (especially regarding fb), but I also believe
that the hype & noise comes with the territory. Viable business model or not
(YouTube is still struggling in that regard), SF has a significant pool of
both human and fiscal resources which is critical to execution and survival.

~~~
babul
In a crowded market or where there is limited resource (VC money, media
attention, etc.), people need to promote themselves. Unfortunately this often
results in hype.

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menloparkbum
It is going to be tough if he wants to invest in software startups. U of
Minnesota's CS department is not very good (I dropped out of the PhD program).
The job market for programmers is dismal - everyone good moves to the Bay
Area, Seattle or NYC. Culturally the mindset of the area is very scandinavian-
socialist, with an odd anti entrepreneurial snobbery. If you have a college
degree and start a company you are looked upon with pity: "oh, she wasn't
smart enough to get a secure job, now she's stuck fending for herself." If you
eventually become successful, everyone will claim they've been supporting you
all along. Definitely not the same attitude as the HN.YC crowd.

There's an obvious win if he wants to invest in biomedical startups, the UofM
is much stronger in the health sciences, and the Mayo clinic is only an hour
out of the metro area.

I hope he's successful. I would have loved to stay closer to my family. I have
younger friends with engineering degrees who want to stay in the area, and are
pretty much working at Starbucks, playing online poker and scrimping along
with their own projects so they can avoid the horrible "enterprise" work that
makes up 99.9% of the programming jobs available in the area.

Note: I grew up 4th generation Minnesotan, I think more recent immigrants
probably avoid most of the cultural baggage.

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iamelgringo
Wow. You nailed the culture right on the head.

I spent a number of formative years in Minnesota, and being a 4th generation
Scandinavian immigrant, I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the
area.

I'd also add that conformity is a very strong value in the upper Midwest. It's
really hard to break out of the box because there are such strong cultural
morays against doing anything different from what the people in your community
are doing.

Finally I'd like to add as a data point that most of the smart CS/Tech guys
that I went to college with in Minnesota spent the majority of their spare
time playing Dungeons and Dragons and participating in the Society for
Creative Anachronism.

~~~
time_management
What college?

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raheemm
Its great to see this guy try to find talent outside of SV. Minneapolis-
St.Paul probably has a lot of hidden talent because of their outstanding
universities. It'll be interesting to see what comes of this.

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LogicHoleFlaw
The Twin Cities and Madison, WI both seem like good prospects for this
endeavor to me.

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incomethax
As a student (and founder) at UW-Madison, I can honestly say, we are still
very much lacking in financial resources necessary for a web/tech based
startup. Most of the VCs around here are interested in Biotech/bio based
businesses and the angel networks are also heavily skewed toward that type of
investment.

That said, both Google and Microsoft are opening offices here and the CS dept.
is accepting more people into their program.

We've also recently gotten a Kauffman grant for UW-Madison, and student orgs
like the UW Entrepreneurship Association and Collegiate Entreprenurs'
Organization have been gaining popularity to allow for lots of different types
of business ideas to develop if you're not looking for web based software.
That's not to say there aren't any (We're one), but there are definitely fewer
than SF/Boston/Twin Cities.

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endlessvoid94
I'm hoping he won't forget UIUC :-/

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smanek
Amen.

Most people forget that uiuc consistently has one of the top 5 engineering
programs nationally (an honor it shares with the likes of MIT, Berkeley, and
Stanford, and Cal-Tech).

And I'd feel pretty confident claiming it's the best in the midwest, hands
down. Yet, I can't count the number of people (in Cambridge) that have no idea
what I'm talking about when I mention 'uiuc' or the 'university of illinois.'

I think part of the problem is that besides a handful of great programs (like
engineering and accounting), uiuc is rather easy to get into. I suppose this
means that the average uiuc alum that you'll meet isn't likely to be as bright
as the average stanford alum, even though our engineers stack up quite well.

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time_management
I've thought for years that the Upper Midwest would be a future hotspot.
Around 1999-2000, I had the sense that Manhattan would grow very strong during
the 2000s, which it did, and that Chicago/Twin Cities would come up during the
2010s in a major way, which seems likely.

One important demographic trend is that, even though people may be marrying
later, they seem to be forming long-term, serious relationships earlier--
often in mid-college. This means that people are actually less mobile/nomadic
than they were in the past two decades, and so you're not going to see the
bulk of the talent gravitating to 3 or 4 coastal cities; you'll see it
gravitating toward 10 or 20 more well-distributed cities.

