
New York will always be a tech backwater, I don’t care what the VCs say - antongm
http://adgrok.com/new-york-will-always-be-a-tech-backwater-i-dont-care-what-chris-dixon-or-ron-conway-or-paul-graham-say
======
btilly
The point I consider most important is only alluded to.

In NY people try to maintain monopolies of information. One place that applies
to is a very restrictive work for hire doctrine. If you have a job in NYC, by
default everything you create belongs to your employer. Even if it was done at
home on your equipment. In California that particular right is one that
remains yours and cannot be lost (unless what you do relates to your
employer's business).

The result is that in California it is common for people to have a day job and
work on the side on a startup. You almost never see the side startup in NY.
Furthermore if you do see it, those startups can be squashed in an instant
when the employer finds out about it. I've seen it happen. Not pretty. (The
same thing can happen, and does from time to time, with open source projects.
However it happens less often because there are fewer cases where someone
wants to leave their day job for their open source project than cases where
they want to leave their day job for their startup.)

That nasty little dynamic is a constant hidden drag on NY. Nobody knows how
many good ideas got squashed and never saw the light of day...

~~~
fragmede
Don't forget non-compete agreements - valid in NY, invalid in CA. So not only
can you NOT leave your day job for a startup, you typically have to wait 2 (or
more) years before being able to freely work on any projects. (If your start
up is in a completely different area than your day-job, you _may_ be able to
get away with it sooner. But don't think that corporations are lax about
enforcing the non-compete you signed.)

~~~
randomtask
"So not only can you NOT leave your day job for a startup, you typically have
to wait 2 (or more) years before being able to freely work on any projects."

If this is true then how does moving job generally work in NYC? Presumably
people there aren't expected to work for one employer all their life or take
years off in between jobs?

~~~
gamble
These clauses are only enforced when it's an easy win for the litigator - for
example, key employees going to a direct rival or a startup with no legal
budget.

~~~
randomtask
That makes sense.

------
aplusbi
"Three years in New York, and I went north of 14th St maybe three times. Trips
to the Met excepted, of course"

I'm supposed to believe this guy knows anything about New York when his
definition of New York is "Manhattan south of 14th st."? Believe it or not
there are people who manage to live in NYC without hemorrhaging money, who
know where and how to eat and don't hang out in the financial industry social
scene.

I don't doubt that NY's tech scene is no where near Silicon Valley but he has
a pretty skewed view of this city.

~~~
antongm
To be totally honest, given the crappy Wall Street life, I spent 80% of my
time south of Maiden Lane, in fact.

I don't think my experience is terribly different than many New Yorkers
though. The trendy neighborhoods of the moment....Soho, the Villages, LES,
Tribeca, are all down south. I felt almost like a tourist on the UWS.

~~~
noname123
As someone who works in finance, even a lower grunt than the quants, I
basically do programming to build/maintain a high frequency trading platform,
I was more interested in your other post on why you didn't like the Wall
Street culture and decided to quit.

[http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup-
with-z...](http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup-with-zero-
revenue-is-better-than-working-for-goldman-sachs#identifier_3_195)

Is it the perceived lower status accorded to the geeks as opposed to the
traders/sales-guys? Also likewise for compensation? Or is it the monotonous
and/or political nature of the work?

What do you hope to gain by moving to the startup scene? To hopefully make it
big and make more money than your former position at GS? Or is it simply to
move to an environment where geeks are respected by peers and women?

Plenty of guys in bulge-bracket firms decide to quit their hectic lifestyle
but choose the "middle-way." That is, take a job at a 2nd-tier prop shop for
less (relative) pay but more reasonable hours and stress. Or some software-
dev's go work for a startup for awhile and then transition back and forth to
consulting/finance when things don't work out. What made you decide on a "all-
or-nothing" kind of move?

These questions aren't meant to be personal interrogations, but rather
reflects my feelings about working in finance; and I'm just curious to hear
your takes on these issues as well.

~~~
antongm
Ha!

I was hoping to unveil that post in a separate thread, but since you've
discovered it, I'll reply.

Yeah, we got paid less than they did. A lot less. At least at the high levels.
At the low levels, we made more than they did, but that's only because the
trader analysts were errand boys.

As for the switch to startup-ness, I'll just say it's a certain messianic
desire to create something totally new (as well as at least claim that I own
it...however small it might be).

You're totally right about the 2nd tier firm thing. I know lots of guys who
did that, and they're happy with it.

------
jgv
As a Brooklynite, I am obviously biased here but a lot of these points are
downright silly and the author seems astonishingly uninformed.

The first thing that struck me was how much this guy was paying in rent. I do
agree that certain things about NYC get expensive but paying ~$2500 for a one
bedroom is downright dumb if you're concerned about money. I have two
roommates and pay $700 for a great place. Part of being a New Yorker is being
savvy. Many people leave because they are not. They can't make rent, they
can't save money, etc. Maybe they all move to California?

The sweeping generalizations here also make it very difficult to take this
article seriously:

"New York has no comparable sources of intellectual firepower" - ITP, Courant,
Columbia

"...most New Yorkers couldn’t fry an egg if their lives depended on it..." -
<http://brooklyngrangefarm.com/>

"Manhattan didn’t get a Home Depot, or any sort of proper hardware store,
until 2004" - ACE hardware

~~~
antongm
Yeah, ACE hardware isn't a proper hardware store, dude.

$2500 was about par for the course for a doorman building in the Financial
District in 2005. Was the lowest price among the ones I looked at. The whole
point is that you have to savvy (i.e. have some inside connection) to the
local real estate scene to not get fleeced. A tool like Craigslist
democratizes the market, and makes inside information less valuable (which is
why I suspect it's never caught on in New York....cause New Yorkers like
feeling like they got the 'deal').

As for the foodie scene: I'm aware there is a thriving one in New York. The
point is that it's totally orthogonal from the sort of ambitious creative
class that would create a startup. The guys I knew from Wall Street most
certainly did not know how to fry an egg...they knew how to order stuff on
SeamlessWeb, and that's about it.

In the Bay Area, those worlds intersect, if not directly overlap. Paul Graham
of Y Combinator used to cook for his startups at the weekly dinners. I can't
even begin to imagine a Goldman partner cooking for his desk.

~~~
starkfist
Everyone in NYC besides bankers have been getting their apartments from
craigslist since 1998. And, you can get a 500sq foot 1bdrm in battery park
city for $1800.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Or Jersey City (the non-yuppie parts) for $1000.

------
carterac
This is a very entertaining and well-written rant. But if you're considering
starting a company or joining a startup in NYC, don't take this too seriously.

I came from a similar background -- did finance in NYC, hung out with an ivy
league crowd etc.. then I started a company in Silicon Valley, and am now
continuing it here in NYC. I don't have time to respond to every point, but I
think my background means something when I say this post is ridiculously far
off base. It makes NYC sound like a scene from Gossip Girl meets American
Psycho.

In 2010, working at a startup in NYC is awesome. There is an amazing community
here and I've found that people are always very excited to find out that you
are doing a startup. In 2010, NYC knows that startups are the future. The
culture here has changed significantly in the last couple of years. And that
is the most exciting thing about NYC.

Don't let the OP's bad experiences from 2008 convince you otherwise.

~~~
starkfist
_It makes NYC sound like a scene from Gossip Girl meets American Psycho._

Wow, that comment really nailed it.

------
gcv
Speaking as a New Yorker contemplating a move to California, I'd say the
article is somewhat accurate about the prestige of working in finance, but
staggeringly wrong on a few other points.

First of all, cafes are plentiful. All he could come up with is the Tea Lounge
in Park Slope? There are dozens of small, non-corporate coffee shops in the
Village, dozens more in Williamsburg. And that's just the two neighborhoods
where I usually spend time.

Second, New Yorkers don't cook? I think the author spent too much time with
the wrong crowd. Plenty of people shop at green markets, including the huge
one at Union Square precisely because they like local produce and like to use
it.

~~~
antongm
Hm. I should note, my information was as of 2008. If there are more cafes now,
than I'm pleased.

Have you seen a California cafe'? I can't really recall seeing anything
comparable in Manhattan. Sure, there are cafes....but one where a guy is
writing a Rails app on his laptop right there by the barista? Have trouble
believing it...be glad to be proven wrong though.

I'm actually not so down on NYC. Just the tech part of it. Part of me is
scheming about how to get back there...

~~~
nir
NYC cafes where I've personally witnessed coders at work include: Housing
Works & McNally's at SoHo, Amrita in Harlem, Gorilla Cafe in Park Slope,
Esperanto on McDougal..

I definitely agree the NYC startup scene is overhyped - this is the city of
hype and startups are now cool by New York Magazine standards. But man, your
view of NYC in general seems much shaped by a very specific social circle and
long hours at GS ;)

~~~
antongm
Hm. New York has a population of 8,000,000 people, and you cite five cafes.

(Btw, Esperanto is cited in the footnotes of the post. It's since closed, at
least according to Yelp.)

Berkeley (pop. 169,000) has you beat for sheer number of cafes (Berkeley
Espresso, Brewed Awakenings, Yali's, Au Coquelet, Caffe Roma, etc.).

A complete list for SF would go on for quite a while....

I stand by my point (excusing a bit of blog-y hyperbole, of course).

~~~
char
Go here, center anywhere on Manhattan and type in "cafe":
<http://maps.google.com>

Surprise!! Cafes!! Everywhere!!

Surely more than 5 of those have coders at work.

------
ibejoeb
I was entertained. If we measure success by getting a round, I guess the case
is closed. But just because NYC startups don't solicit as much capital doesn't
mean that they don't exist; they just develop viable business models a
generate revenue. I know that unfashionable, but it's the way it goes...

There are a ton of tech startups, and, not surprisingly, a lot of them are in
the finance space. You know what's hot, too? Mobile. And it's going to
continue to be, because New York is _the_ walking city.

The other thing about it is that New York startups tend to keep things a bit
closer to the chest. You don't tend to see a writeup in TechCrunch about an
embryonic startup in NYC. Better or worse, most NYC startups start making
money before the press hits and the rounds start coming in. It's a very
different philosophy.

New York's not for everyone. You're among the wealthiest and most powerful, so
yes, you might get a little squeamish if you're sensitive. You won't be
mollycoddled.

And what's the food got to do with startup culture? I don't think the food
scene is the right platform to attack New York. SF is only a food town if you
want a burrito. I like Argentinian beef, other people like some hippie's
broccoli. I'll give up the wine: California has some good stuff, if you're in
to alcohol levels. 15%? Damn, Napa.

As others have pointed out, there are welcoming cafes literally river-to-river
through the villages, and on the LES you can set up shop practically anywhere.

Now is a terrific time to be involved in NYC startups. It might not be quite
as prestigious as being in the the valley, but it comes with a salary, and
options aren't coastal.

~~~
smwhreyebelong
I am new to the whole NYC startup scene. Which, according to you, are some of
the cool startups in NYC ? Also, are there any NYC-startup specific news
sources ?

~~~
glenra
Cool startup: <http://makerbot.com>

News source: <http://www.nycresistor.com/>

------
jasonlbaptiste
You're kidding me, right? If your goal is to perceive a tech hub as trying to
beat Silicon Valley you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. No
other city will beat Silicon Valley. We know this. The point is this: to build
a good ecosystem of education, talent, and investment that lets a city
flourish on its own without having to flock to somewhere better. Take the
foundations of what makes Silicon Valley what it is and have it provide a
sustainable community.

Some posts are legitimate link bait with a well baked argument, this is just
downright rotten.

Disclosure: I've lived in Silicon Valley, so I'm not taking sides of NYC or
city x here.

~~~
tmugavero
Thank you for saying this. I wanted to post the exact same thing but you said
it all. Let's be honest, the Valley has been important in one aspect (tech)
for about the last 30 years. New York has been a global focal point in all
aspects for 200 years. Let's all just get along and use our collective
diversity to make something better, not trash each other's cities to get
readers.

~~~
cageface
That's exactly the appeal of NYC to me. I've been working in tech in the S.F.
area for over ten years now and it's starting to feel very one-dimensional.
Living somewhere where art and literature and culture matter as much as
technology sounds extremely refreshing at this point.

~~~
starkfist
I felt the same way and I moved (back) to NYC after 10 years in SF. The city
has changed a bit. There are a lot of things to do outside the tech sector.
However, I'm not sure I would say "art and literature and culture matter" as
much as they seemed to in the past. Manhattan is nearly 100% yuppified now.
this is good and bad. It's good in that the whole left coast of Manhattan is
now a giant urban park. There are bike lanes everywhere. There are parks
everywhere. There's a farmer's market in Union Square every (other?) day.
There are free things like movies on the pier, concerts in the park, etc. I
saw Dinosaur Jr. for free in central park last summer (?!). It's probably
easier to eat healthy food in NYC than anywhere else in the world.

The bad things (IMHO) is that there aren't as many interestingly weird music
or arts things as there were even 10, 15 years ago. There are no nightclubs.
There are no weird music venues in Manhattan. The most avante-garde you are
going to get is a band like Grizzly Bear... which is kind of avante-garde but
is also a huge national act at the same time. Artists have to live way out in
Bushwick, or even further away. I don't really know where interesting art
shows go up. I honestly think the number of actual practicing artists and
musicians is probably the smallest it has ever been. The indie gallery scene
isn't a lot better than SF. There are probably more bookstores in either
Seattle or Portland than there are in all of the NYC area, which says
something... I'm not sure what.

So I won't lie... I was disappointed in the state of artsy-fartsy music and
culture when I returned to NYC. But I do like all this other urban parkland
paradise stuff. So it's a tradeoff. I don't really know where people are doing
interesting art and music stuff... maybe berlin or beijing? I know a lot of
artists who moved to LA simply because it's easier to get a lot of space. Even
Jeff Dietch moved there.

If you're looking for something like Andy Warhol's factory scene, I don't
think it's happening here. If you're looking for a girlfriend who is a graphic
designer for Kate Spade's website - it's your best bet.

~~~
cageface
Interesting, if disappointing. My conception of NYC is probably stuck in a
1970's vision of the place. I'm sure art cultures seem more concentrated and
vital in hindsight when the winners have been canonized but I've heard a lot
of people complain that downtown NYC has been Disneyfied.

I personally know several electronic musicians that left S.F. for Berlin so
maybe that's a better destination. It doesn't seem nearly as energetic in tech
though.

------
api
Another thing that came to mind that this article alludes to: on the East
Coast (and most other places) salesmen and MBA types _always_ outrank geeks.
It's deeply ingrained in the culture. Those who can do. Those who can't lead.
Being a doer makes your social rank _lower_.

Ok, I'm way exaggerating. It's not _that bad_. But that mentality is present,
and the best way for me to explain it was to describe it in its purest form.
You rarely actually encounter it that bad, but I have at least once.

------
SandB0x
"Every yuppie I knew in New York worked as either a Wall Street guy, a lawyer,
or an agent of some sort. Basically, there were all subtly screwing someone
else for a living."

This is exactly how I feel about London. It feels like the city takes much
more from the world than it produces.

~~~
api
I have a little bit of experience with London, and I can second this. London
actually gives me the willies after meeting the business culture there. If you
ever want to make an argument for the actual existence of shape shifting
reptiles (ala nutjob David Icke) then just hang around London's business scene
for a while.

America is superficially conservative and deeply liberal. Europe is
superficially liberal and deeply conservative.

~~~
jimbokun
"America is superficially conservative and deeply liberal. Europe is
superficially liberal and deeply conservative."

This explains much of my confusion trying to understand Europe.

------
moxiemk1
I come to Hacker News looking for intelligent discourse. There wasn't a
_shred_ of nuance in this article. Nuanced thought is why this is a great
place to be. Please don't post articles where the author is openly admitting
that they are sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "lalala I
can't hear you."

Is New York's tech scene as big as San Francisco's? No. However, this is akin
to writing an article titled that "Africa will always be an industrial
backwater, I don't care what the economists say."

~~~
hyperbovine
_I come to Hacker News looking for intelligent discourse. There wasn't a
_shred_ of nuance in this article._

That, I presume, is why it is hosted elsewhere. The comments here are
illuminating, as always.

------
portman
I'm confused. If your city doesn't "equal Silicon Valley" then it is a "tech
backwater"?

As far as I know, nobody has claimed that NYC will eclipse the Bay Area -
they're just saying that the tech scene in NYC is growing and maybe that NYC
is poaching the "#2" spot from Boston.

Or am I missing something?

------
api
Boston is probably the closest runner up to the Valley, and it's not even
close.

Boston has the brains, but not the culture. It's like a Ferrari motor in a
stuffy Mercedes driven by an old blue haired lawyer.

Really the whole East Coast has this problem. If the East Coast had a motto,
it would be "it's not what you know, it's who you know." It's anti-
meritocratic and very different from the cowboy innovator mentality in the
valley.

Make Burning Man attendance compulsory for everyone at Harvard and MIT and
maybe you'd get somewhere.

Edit: Boston does have some plusses though. You do not have to own a car for
one...

~~~
iamwil
But then again, even here in SF, angels and VCs won't take a meeting w/ you
unless you get an intro. In that sense, it is who you know. (Though I've found
people more than willing to help each other here in Bay Area).

Is there a different sense of "who you know" that you're talking about in
Boston? The only thing I can imagine is something like when people use to talk
about your breeding.

~~~
api
The VC culture is probably closer to banker culture, so you're right about
that. I've never gotten to meet with a VC without an intro. But I was talking
more about the culture at large. You've kind of got it with your last
sentence.

The larger culture in Boston is a lot more "who you know" / "where did you go
to school" than in California. Basically if you didn't go to an Ivy League
school then you're kind of in a lower social caste. You get looked down on (in
a very subtile and "polite" way) if you are not Ivy League or if you are from
the "flyover country."

The other (related) problem with Boston is that it's not extroverted. Boston
is bookish and introverted and quiet. It's sort of impolite in Boston to have
a fun personality, and it's very hard to make friends. Bostonians don't have
friends, they have colleagues. (A bit of an exaggeration, but you get the
idea.) Laughing, making jokes, and having any kind of personality sort of
marks you as lower class.

It reminds me of a more classist version of the famed "Seattle chill":

[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.h...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.html)

Basically Boston is very classist, bookish, and introverted. Boston has tons
and tons of brains, but they're <sniff sniff> _intellectuals_ , not
revolutionaries or innovators.

Boston may actually have more raw IQ-power than the valley though. Put LSD in
the drinking water here and you might rival the valley in a few years.

But like I said there's a bright side too. The Bostonian politeness thing is a
double edged sword. On one hand it's stuffy, but on the other hand it can be
quite _noble_. Bostonians will help you out. They will quietly come to your
aid. They will close ranks to defend you if you're wronged (provided you're
"in" with them), and they will quietly and gradually mentor you. You can drop
your wallet in downtown Boston (population almost 1 million) and someone will
_drive to your house_ to bring you your wallet _with everything still in it_.
(This has happened to me, and to two people I know.)

So the upside is that Boston is very civilized in a positive way, but the
downside is that it's very "civilized" in a negative way. Oh, and you don't
have to own a car. Having to sit in a dinosaur burner huffing fumes for three
hours every day is one of my least favorite things about California.

~~~
noname123
Ironically in Boston, you only need a car if you work in the tech industry as
most of the startup's are located on 128 which is in the outskirts of the
Boston suburban sprawl. But if you work in finance or allied health,
everything is conveniently located downtown.

Also, I don't agree that Boston is a civilized city. IMO, Boston is a lot like
Providence or Bridgeport, plus a few more ivory tower enclaves and lots more
inebriated college kids.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
In my wildest dreams I've never thought I'd hear Boston compared to Bridgeport
(I assume you mean CT?). Never been to Boston, but B'port must have changed an
awful lot since I lived there :-)

~~~
noname123
Nah. Bridgeport hasn't change one bit since you left (I assume the Bridgeport
you know is one whose mayor is caught with a cocaine habit and restaurants in
downtown are robbed in daylight). It's just your over-estimating perception of
Boston; imagine a bigger New Haven with a couple of more Yale campuses and
equal number of run-down neighborhoods next to them.

~~~
aprrrr
Could you name some of the run-down neighborhoods next to campuses? I don't
see it, unless there are some Yale campuses in Fields Corner that I don't know
about.

~~~
noname123
All of Boston's Universities are located downtown or in Cambridge; no slums at
Kenmore/Brookline/Downtown, but go out to the outskirts of the city, like
Mission Hills, Roxbury or Dorchester (away from Huntington Ave. Medical
Campus). Or the part of Brighton and lower Allston that's further away from
Harvard and BU. Or the true Slumerville of Somerville away from Tufts. Even
East Cambridge away from MIT and Kendall Sq., although that part of town is
fast gentrifying a la Davis Sq.

The misconception is that Boston is this global city of about 4.5 million
people living in academic utopia when it's a really smaller city of 600,000
people, where even a smaller percentage are actually living in ivory towers.
The rest of the 4.5 million people live in typical post-industrial New England
towns surrounding Boston such as Lynn, Revere and Quincy.

------
starkfist
He's right about a lot of things. The cafe scene in NYC isn't as good as the
west coast. Apartments are very expensive. Debutantes from Bryn Mawr want to
date successful traders. And the startup scene in SF/SV is slowly but surely
turning into a bunch of ex-banker foodie cocks from NYC.

~~~
brown9-2
_Debutantes from Bryn Mawr want to date successful traders._

So what?

Do the desires of a certain tiny demographic skew how you feel about a city of
10 million people?

------
helmut_hed
I spoke recently to a friend of mine who had moved back from NYC to SF, and he
told me that when you tell people in a bar you're a software engineer, they
get this condescending look and say, "oh, IT..." (as in, the people who fix
the computers). This article basically confirms what he was telling me.

~~~
ryoshu
It depends on the bar and the crowd; hanging out around NYU or Columbia is
much different than hanging out around Wall Street or the Upper East Side.

NYC doesn't have the same kind of start up culture that the Valley has, but
there are plenty of start ups here. I've consulted with two start ups that are
pretty successful in their respective niches.

I've never lived in Silicon Valley, but I lived in SoCal and I've been to SF a
number of times. There is certainly a different vibe on the West Coast. NYC
will never be the next Silicon Valley. We have our own culture here and the
diversity it provides is a good thing.

------
haseman
There's more to New York than old money on the Upper West Side. I just moved
to Brooklyn from the Mission (in SF) and I must say they are very similar. The
art isn't as burning man oriented but the hipsters still carry iPhones and I
get dragged into just as many conversations about making 'apps'.

------
elblanco
I've never lived in NYC, but I go there once or twice a year since the mid-90s
and I have to say, the city he's describing, and the city I visit are
apparently in different, alternate realities. I don't go there for the startup
scene, so I can't comment on that but I can comment on lots of the other
absurd nonsense:

1) _$2495 for a 500 sq. ft. one bedroom apartment._

He's obviously in the wrong part of town and can't figure out how to use the
real estate section of the NYT. Extend your commute on the subway by 15-20
minutes a day, or live in Queens or something and you'll shave 70% off of that
for a place twice as large. In 10 minutes I found a dozen 2 bedroom apartments
for $1600 in Queens. You want to live in an expensive area, then that's what
you get. When you model a place like NYC, it's better to think of it as a much
larger area. A few blocks is like a few miles of price differentiation
elsewhere. Don't like what's _right here_? Go walk 10 minutes in any direction
and you'll be someplace completely different.

2) _‘Ramen’ money in New York is enough to support three families, and then
some, elsewhere._

I have no idea what he's spending money on. Even if he was pulling down only
$60k a year (unlikely as a quant), your apartment is only 1/2 of your gross
income. Even after taxes you have like a thousand a month to live on at that
rate and no car expenses. Being a quant @ GS, I'd figure you're pulling down
another 30-40k/yr gross anyways so you can still have a nice night out once a
month. NYC is really not an expensive place to eat. I don't think I've ever
paid more than $7 for a stuff me to the gills breakfast. And a decent date-
meal for two ran <$120 with drinks. Apparently the author never figured out
how to operate a Deli or a Diner.

3) _can't fit in socially with the wrong social group that I'm just dying to
be part of blah blah_

Cry me a river, go to different bars and stop hanging around with people who
won't let you into their clique/you already have a girlfriend (at the time)
what are you doing picking up chicks? Color me confused.

4) _In San Francisco, people don’t pay two months’ rent to a real estate pimp:
they create Craigslist and make the pimp obsolete._

I wasn't aware that San Francisco had managed to abolish Real Estate agents.
It's funny because craigslist serves other parts of the country and we still
have Real Estate agents....

5) _The intellectual candle-power isn’t there_

And the elsewhere goes on to pine that everybody he wants to hang with is ivy-
league. The only thing that he said that makes any kind of sense is that the
educational makeup of the in-city schools is all wrong for tech startups. I
mean there's NYU-Poly I guess, but that's small fry, Princeton is not really
that far away (an hour more than Stanford is from downtown SF by car). But
there's a ton of schools with great engineering programs within a day's drive
from the city (MIT for example). Am I supposed to understand that the entire
educational system of the North East and mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. can't
out-compete Stanford? Again, color me confused?

6) _One of the biggest shocks upon moving to New York was realizing it had no
cafés_

What? At this point I'm not even sure the author has even been to NYC. Which
is besides the point, the point he's making is, "you can’t have startups or
revolutionary political movements without cozy cafés to dawdle, work, and plot
in." Because as I noticed before, the author failed to figure out how to
operate a Deli or a Diner. He also failed to figure out how to operate a
public park, a bookstore, a coffee shop, a donut shop, a bench, a stoop and
numerous other public places other than an office where you can sit and meet
for long hours in the city. Protip, there's this fantastic huge public place
you can use in NYC called "Central Park" absolutely free. If that's not "cozy"
enough, there's a bunch of smaller parks like Madison Square all dotted
throughout the city. If you want to eat while you forment revolution, there's
like a Starbuck's on every single block in the city.
<http://kottke.org/05/01/maximum-starbucks-density> Even in 2005.

7) _The reality is, the food culture in New York mostly sucks._

I know food can be subjective, but seriously? I'm definitely sure that tales
of living in the city are grossly exaggerated and/or he was confused with
living in Tampa, FL or something. No wait, I'm sure I've seen a cafe there.

7b) _blah blah blah, people in SF really all want to be farmers_

Wonderful, if you live in a place with some dirt you can till without getting
a fine, you can farm it. NYC is not such a place. Deal with it.

7c) _Even the skeeziest convenience store in Daly City or Oakland has a
drinkable collection of California wines on offer._

Like I said, I don't live in NYC, but last I remember was being able to pick
up some Sonoma Valley vino at every 7-11 along the East Coast for <$10.

7d) _In three years of living in New York, I never ate someone else’s home-
cooked food even once._

See #3. You.hang.out.with.the.wrong.people. I'm not sure I can put it more
plainly than that. No wonder you couldn't afford anything.

One thing NYC is famous for is locally grown produced trucked in in the wee
hours of the morning to sell in small stalls. The NYC butcher was the model of
meat procurement until the grocery store and strip malls ended that across the
country. For goodness sakes, the whole city is basically a farmer's market.
You know what's doing gangbusters business? Whole Foods. I barely know people
in the city, and I've never lived there, and _I've_ had more home-cooked meals
than this poor sap.

8) _blah blah home depot in NYC only sells nail clippers and 10 cent nails._

This is really just a jab and the relative masculinity of New Yorkers compared
to San Franciscoers. Whatever, the author got eaten up and spit out by the
city and simply couldn't handle it, now he wants to spend the rest of his days
cultivating asparagus in a plot behind his house. It's really amazing how so
many of the tallest buildings in the U.S. can be in one city with no hardware
stores in site.

He's then absolutely enamored by a real Home Depot, no doubt anchoring a strip
mall someplace, and a big box electronics store as _proof_ that SF is a
hacker's paradise. _yawn_ , I live in the suburbs and have half a dozen of
each within 20 minutes of my house. By this standard, Anytown, US is twice the
hacker's paradise than SF since most places have a Home Depot, a Lowes, a
local lumber yard, a garden nursery, a stone quarry, a Fry's, a Best Buy and
two Radio Shacks.

9) _Three years in New York, and I went north of 14th St maybe three times.
Trips to the Met excepted, of course_

Facepalm. No wonder nobody would talk to you in a bar, it's not because you
were a quant.

~~~
antongm
You gave me a point-by-point rebuttal, so I'll give a similar counter-
rebuttal.

1) Queens is way too far away from lower Manhattan. Believe me, I tried
looking elsewhere. It wasn't much cheaper. The solution I ended up with was
moving into a tenement in LES with the girlfriend, who had a lease dating back
five years. That was the 'cheap' way to go.

2) I'll quote the managing director on my desk: you need about 500K a year to
live normally in Manhattan with a family. That's like 10 families in the
flyover states.

4) At least in 2005, if you tried using CL to find an apartment in NY, you'd
find it completely taken over by broker spam. As Craig Newmark himself
mentioned in a recent interview, de-spamifying the New York CL rentals
listings was one of his biggest challenges. I can't imagine it's much
different now, although I'd love to see otherwise.

6) Dude, Starbucks isn't a cafe'. The fact you're even counting them proves my
point about New Yorkers.

7c) Actually, New York delis can't sell wine by law, probably as a kickback to
the liquor store owners. So good luck finding that bottle of Sonoma at 2am on
Friday. I never did.

8) Yeah, and try getting to those big box stores from Manhattan. It starts
with a subway ride to midtown to rent a car from one of the agencies next to
the Queen's Midtown tunnel....

9) Eh, actually they did talk to me, once I dropped the G-bomb, which is kind
of the point of the post. I wasn't a startup geek when I was in NYC.

That might be enough for one reply....

~~~
elblanco
As I've said elsewhere, I'm not disputing your central claim that NYC tech
scene is a pale shadow of the Bay Area scene. But your arguments for why that
is are bizarre and nonsensical.

1) I was just picking someplace random. It's not a two hour commute from
anyplace in the city to any other place (unless you count coming in from as
far out as Jamaica or Mt. Vernon during rush hour I guess). But there's plenty
of places 10-20 minutes outside of the Financial District that are _way_ less.
BTW CL is not the only place that lists apartments. There's a 2 BR in the NYT
real estate section for $2k/mo in Ft. Greene right now. That's <25 minutes,
bring a book and there's a ton of >500 sq ft. places on the Island for
<$2500/mo.

2) I guess that's true if you want to live in a building with a doorman in a 3
bedroom apartment and an au pair. I wouldn't call that living "normally" in
Manhattan though. I'm also mystified with the requirement to live directly on
the island. There's other boroughs that are much cheaper. At that type of
income, you're looking at around $10-$13k/mo in housing costs. There's not a
lot of places you _can't_ live in the city for that.

4) I don't disagree, that's why there's a half dozen other cheap/free ways to
find apartments in cities.

6) I will agree that the cafe culture in NYC is not nearly as prevalent as
places that are ~70deg year round. Heck, there's more cafes in the D.C. area.
But they are there. I've actually had some very nice evenings sitting outside
sipping a latte and chatting about the weather. But restricting yourself to
cafes and only cafes is like going to Paris and talking about how the Tex-Mex
food culture sucks. You know the old saying "When in Rome..." In NYC you do
delis, coffeeshops and diners, not cafes. The last time I was in the city a
month ago I spent half a day in a deli responding to email next to a guy
hacking out some code. It's not like they kick you out so long as you buy
something.

7c) All I can say is, I've never had a problem finding cheap CA wine in the
city. I usually go out and pick some up and bring it back to my hotel instead
of paying $30-60/btl at a restaurant. Much more satisfying and not terribly
hard to find - did nobody in your social group in 3 years ever figure out
where to buy a bottle of wine?

8) I think my point was that it's not necessary, nor does it make sense to
equate big box hardware stores with a hacker's paradise. I mean, I guess if
"hacking" has changed meaning to mean "I need some lumber and an industrial
dehumidifier" then you make sense. Calling SF such a place because you can get
all your gardening and plumbing needs taken care of at one store just simply
is nonsensical.

9) Hang around superficial people and they'll expect superficial things.

~~~
psyklic
Choose a random cafe in SF, and I bet it will not be filled with hacker-types.
Choose a random person in SF to talk to, and I bet they will not care about
startups either. It's all about who your friends are and where you hang out.

Did the OP actually try going to any NYC hacker meetups? Did he go to any NYC
hacker spaces? When he was at parties, did he even mention his interest in
startups, or did he himself perpetuate the myths he describes?

------
mtalantikite
Sounds like the author never explored the outer boroughs.

Come to Brooklyn, it's nicer here.

~~~
asnyder
You have to be more specific of your definition of Brooklyn. It sounds like
you're implying Williamsburg, and Carroll Gardens, which frankly isn't
representative of Brooklyn. Williamsburg in particular is essentially an
extension of Manhattan, due to the transportation options and cost of living.

~~~
dustym
They are plenty representative of the Brooklyn of the last 10 years - that of
steady gentrification and rise of cost of living, but still cheaper than
Manahattan. Though not much. Much more housing stock, though.

Can we just assume that anyone commenting about Brooklyn on this post is
implying South Brooklyn[1] or Williamsburg? If you aren't, please note.
Something like "Come to East New York, Brooklyn" would work, so asnyder
doesn't get confused.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Brooklyn>

~~~
starkfist
The greater "tech scene" (if you can call it that) in Brooklyn is in and
around Dumbo and Downtown.

~~~
dustym
You're right. Mentally I (incorrectly) lump them in with South Brooklyn. Or,
more to the point, "yipster" Brooklyn.

Honest question: How many people actually live near their work in DUMBO or
Downtown?

~~~
starkfist
No idea. Personally, I hate DUMBO and find it very inconvenient (from
elsewhere in Brooklyn), but I know maybe a dozen hacker types who live over
there.

------
nerme
When I lived in NYC, I built recording studios and did noise abatement in a
number of bars in Brooklyn and Manhattan. There are plenty of places to pick
up supplies

Also, there are TONS of specialty shops. Canal Rubber is my favorite, as I
used a lot of mass-loaded vinyl. In fact, in most places in the US, you would
have to order in specialty construction materials.

As for general purpose, I got a good discount at Dyke's Lumber. They have
locations all over the city.

Metropolitan Lumber is nice also. They've got lots of cheap "used tools", if
you know what I mean. I used them when I was working in Hell's Kitchen.

You can haggle prices down quite a bit at all these places. Normally you just
say "well, Dyke's gives me %10 off orders of this size" or whatever.

However, when the Home Depot opened up in Bed-Stuy, their prices were so low
that pretty much every handyman in Brooklyn shopped there.

Oh, and all of these places deliver. I rarely went in to the location. You
just call them up, say you need 20 2x4x8' studs, 10 1/2" pieces of sheetrock,
and they'll roll up with a big truck with your stuff. Don't forget to tip!

For the random little things there are hardware stores all over the city. I
can't think of a time I had to walk more than 5 minutes to pick up a box of
screws or buy some new work gloves.

------
qq66
Relatively cheap living in the Bay Area? Only compared to New York (unless you
live in East Palo Alto)

~~~
isamuel
Seriously. What a laugh. The author parks himself in a doorman building in one
of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city and then declares that you
can't get by without paying $2500 a month in rent.

~~~
qq66
Sounds like someone who got dumped hard by a girlfriend, got mugged in the
street, or came down with a terrible disease in New York and has formed a bad
association with the city.

------
ryoshu
Thinking about this a bit more, I realize that in the decade I've been in NYC,
the majority of the time I've been working with or for startups. On the tech
side there are companies like Morningside Analytics, who do incredible data
visualizations of the blogosphere. MA was bootstrapped by three guys from
Columbia University. Perceptive Pixel was founded by Jeff Han, based on his
work at NYU (you might have seen his TED talk). Fog Creek was founded here.
Peter Shankman founded AirTroductions and HARO. UrbanDaddy is a block away
from where I'm sitting. Foursquare is here and so is Boxee.

On the creative/advertising side of things, where do I start? The company I'm
currently at was bootstrapped by three guys back in 2006. Now we have 25
employees in our NYC office and satellite offices in Amsterdam, Stockholm and
Sao Paolo. There are a ton of creative start ups in NYC. WDDG (MochiMedia,
while based out of San Fran, was founded by Jameson Hsu and Bob Ippolito, both
former DDGers (hi Jameson and Bob)), Big Spaceship, Barbarian Group, Enjoy
User Experience (whose founder was co-founder of Kioken)...

This stuff is off of the top of my head; I don't even hang out in the NYC
startup scene. There's plenty of stuff going once you get away from Wall
Street.

------
brown9-2
For those readers that are actually familiar with NYC and/or Manhattan, this
one quote pretty accurately sums up the weight of the author's arguments and
experiences:

 _Columbia is not a top-notch engineering school, and anyhow, it’s way the
hell up and gone in Harlem, and no one who isn’t a student or faculty ever
goes up there._

------
char
As someone who is currently doing a startup in the Bay Area, lived in NYC for
6 years (and loved it) and went to Columbia, I don't even know where to start
ripping apart this article. I'm hoping someone else already did it.

And for the record, Columbia is in Morningside Heights, not Harlem.

------
loewenskind
>‘Ramen’ money in New York is enough to support three families, and then some,
elsewhere.

Low cost of living fallacy. "Ramen money" in new york might be a higher number
then "Ramen money" somewhere else, but the pay will (obviously) be higher as
well which is what you want.

If you double your pay _and_ double your expenses you're still better off
unless you were spending every penny. There are a lot of things you want/need
to have that aren't going to be cheaper when you live in a low cost of living
area (e.g. computer, luxury car, smart phone), so living in a higher pay/cost
area makes _these_ items relatively cheaper (e.g. $1k seems like a lot when
you make that in a month, but not when you make $20k a month).

------
chaostheory
I disagree about the cost of living tidbits, since it's not too hard to be
able to live and eat cheaply; you just may not be living in the greatest or
safest areas. However the way he describes the social scene is pretty
accurate.

------
isamuel
This article makes the common mistake of confusing Manhattan for New York.
It's true: the Upper East Side is a bad place to start a startup. Fort Greene
isn't.

------
spot
This is a very narrow perspective about NYC, but he's certainly right the tech
scene is smaller and always will be.

------
ardit33
Hey, that's my apt building on the pic! These guys are actually my neighbors.

I saw them few months ago, move in on an empty apt and coding their way the
last two-three months. I hope they make it.

~~~
mceachen
So do we!

------
lallysingh
Ouch, that hurts for those of us who're in NYC and have real reasons why we
can't/won't leave.

------
antongm
We're back!

Sorry for the interruption in service. We got hosed when TechMeme carried the
piece.

------
jamesbritt
Any NYMPHS or Port0 people here?

------
ergo98
Expected to be offended and confrontational, but ended up really enjoying it.
Spot on.

------
HilbertSpace
PART I

The responses in this thread are off on 'style', 'scene', 'culture', parties,
hook ups, buying wine at 2 AM, housing, commuting, employment contracts, etc.
and, thus, avoiding the main issue of the actual post and much more:

Look, guys, the main issue is information technology (IT) startups in NYC.
Just what is it about that focus that is difficult to keep in mind?

Keeping this focus in mind, I continue:

A big deal in the article was the difficulty of hiring programmers. Total BS.
If you are doing an IT startup, an early prerequisite is that you BE a
programmer. What you don't already know about programming, LEARN. Got some
problem with learning how to program? Go back to CA and pick lettuce.

I taught myself to program and taught computer science in college and graduate
school. Teach YOURSELF to program. If you don't, IT entrepreneurship is not
one of your more promising career directions.

Uh, the current programming tools are so powerful they are quite complicated
and fairly new, and a consequence is that you will spend more time learning
the tools than using them the first time. Indeed, the big pattern is that the
tools change so fast over the decades you may spend more time learning tools
than using them.

In particular, as a programmer, most of your work is JUST learning tools.
Right: In the research universities, the professors don't know these tools.
So, as has been the case for decades in the US computer industry, to program,
you have to teach yourself, over and over, continually. Uh, PL/I is actually a
terrific language, and for some years OS/2 was actually by a wide margin the
best PC operating system; so, I've got a nice OS/2 PL/I compiler if you want!

The idea of hiring a Wall Street programmer? They have to learn the new stuff,
too. Likely they concentrated on one of user interface and graphics,
relational data base, computational algorithms, or Web site development. Well,
in that case, for an IT startup, they still have more to learn and spend more
time learning than doing.

Okay, if you are the CEO of an IT startup, then it is your solemn obligation
to understand ALL the software. For this you MUST have learned the software
tools. Then, once you have learned those tools, for you, by yourself, to use
these tools to write the software you need for your startup should be doable,
e.g., less work than just the learning and, generally, less work than just
communicating with a 'programmer'. So, then you won't need a programmer. So,
the supply of 'programmers' in NYC or Silicon Valley is irrelevant. Sorry
'bout that. Or the solution to the 'shortage' is just one more programmer,
YOU, so start learning.

So, venture partners with minimal current software knowledge (is there any
other kind?), this is the day of the IT startup with just one person, the
founding CEO who wrote all the software. We know you couldn't do it, but they
did, and there are some big advantages. Get used to it.

Uh, just because you cook your own breakfast does not make you a Denny's short
order cook; just because you drive your own car does not make you a chauffeur;
just because you wrote your own software does not make you 'just a
programmer'.

Uh, now, Visual Basic .NET is an excellent programming language and no longer
very 'basic'; .NET already has essentially every subroutine or function of any
general usefulness you can think of; ASP.NET is cute and more fun than
throwing peanuts in the zoo.

~~~
HilbertSpace
PART II

Uh, my padawan learner, you need a little more, and I will outline some
'principles' that actually have some lasting value:

Some major events in programming language design were in the 1950s -- Fortran
(arrays, IF statements, and loops), Cobol (hierarchical data structures, IF
statements, and loops), Algol (nice source code nesting, name scoping, and
call by reference, value, and name, that last one a bit amazing), APL (clever
things with arrays and a very sparse syntax -- interpretive), and LISP (a
programming language that can examine and change its source code as it runs,
with too many parentheses, interpretive).

Then, for icing on that cake, the 1960s were the 'golden age' of programming
language design. So, there was PL/I (borrowed from Fortran, Cobol, Algol, and
a little from assembler; had some exceptional condition handling NICELY
connected with storage management and task management) and Algol 68 (oops, I
never learned it!). Somewhere in or near there was C, Pascal, Ada, and Simula.

'Object-oriented' programming (OOP)? Given a language with aggregates, e.g.,
Fortran arrays and/or Cobol data structures, memory pointers, and dynamic
memory allocation, the basics of OOP were immediately obvious and commonly
reinvented by any programmer who ever hit a keyboard. IBM had it in microcode
in the early 1970s.

Fortran? It didn't have pointers, but after a few lines of assembler it did!
Another way was just to have a COMMON block (that is, an 'external' name, that
is, 'resolved' by the linkage editor) with one array and use array addresses
as memory pointers. If need a little more for manipulating addresses, then
write a few, very short assembler routines.

Dynamic memory allocation? Not a lot new there. Actually, for each power of 2,
have a root of a chain of pointers for free space of size that power of 2. So,
an array of 64 pointers each 64 bits long should be sufficient for a while!

Then, roughly, if want some memory of size m where 2^(n - 1) < m <= 2^n, then
go to the root for size 2^n and allocate the first block on the chain and
correct the chain. If there is no free block of memory on that chain, then for
some k > n allocate a block of size 2^k, use that memory to put its blocks of
size 2^n on the chain, and allocate one of those. Can also slightly modify
this scheme to free the block of size 2^k when it is empty of blocks of size
2^n. The scheme is fast and easy to implement and especially effective on a
virtual memory computer where can get a lot of page alignment and where the
'wasted' free space is mostly just disk space.

Garbage collection (that is, compress out holes)? Not a lot new: Keep
references and then move the memory and update the references. Can have some
advantages for long running, complicated, production software but has a well
deserved reputation for being slow. So far Microsoft's implementation seems to
be at least reasonably fast.

'Collections'? Use AVL trees as in the first edition of Knuth's 'The Art of
Computer Programming'.

Hashing? Don't miss extensible hashing!

C? A toy language written at Bell Labs for word whacking and so small the
compiler could run in 8 KB or 5 KB or some such of main memory. It was so
lacking in features that the usual fix-ups people did for OOP were eventually
provided in a pre-processor called C++.

~~~
HilbertSpace
PART IV

Assuming you can learn to program, we move right along here: Somewhere in your
IT startup you will have to have your Web site go live and then get users and
ad revenue. The example you want to follow early on is just Plenty of Fish
(look it up -- you know how to do that, right?).

For 'venture funding' of such startups, apparently the LPs (uh, 'limited
partners', the guys at pension funds, university endowments, life insurance
companies, and wealthy families who provide the money the venture people
invest) got together and wrote a memo:

"Thou shall fund no 'consumer facing' IT startup before the Web site is up and
running with at least 100,000 unique users a month and this quantity growing
rapidly."

Yup, at $0.50 per thousand add impressions, that 100,000 might amount to a
grand total of, let's see, may I have the calculator, please, right, $50 a
month. So, 100,000 'uniques' is not a lot to take to the bank.

But whether you take equity funding or not, that 100 K uniques is an early
milestone.

So, how to reach this milestone? Study and think a lot, have a few thousand
ideas, evaluate them, pick one, learn to program, write software, bring up
your Web site, get some publicity, and hopefully see your uniques scream above
1 million a month quickly.

Uh, some venture partner idiot, some guy, once said something totally stupid,
as idiots are wont to do, "Ideas are easy; execution is hard.". Yup, mark of a
total idiot. No wonder he thinks execution is hard -- it is if start with only
easy ideas! In fact, GOOD ideas are hard and then, if only by definition,
execution is routine. Sorry guy.

You need a GOOD idea, and for that you need, first, a wild, off the wall,
unconstrained, violate all the common wisdom, high frequency, free running
idea generator that has run out a few million ideas. It helps to have the
ideas exploiting some powerful fundamentals (I can't go into those here). Then
need to evaluate the ideas, ruthlessly, up, down, sideways, inside, outside,
etc., today, tomorrow, and next week, and be ferociously critical. Also need
to know some good ways to evaluate ideas (I can't go into that here). Only
THEN do you have much chance of a GOOD idea. Those few weeks will be time VERY
well spent. "Measure twice; saw once." "Look before you leap."

At 6 million ad impressions a month at $0.50 per thousand, that's $3000 a
month. Maybe with that you are 'profitable'.

If you are just running your own Web servers and not paying a 'hosting'
service, then actually the $3000 is enough for you to buy another Web server
to handle the increased load! If you plug it together yourself from parts,
$3000 will buy one very powerful computer. Software? Versions of Unix, MySQL,
etc, are free or nearly so. Microsoft has their BizSpark program where they
will provide their software for free for a while to startups.

More generally, think 'exponentially': If your usage keeps growing, then
ballpark you will have enough revenue in month n to double your server farm
capacity in month n + 1. Right, Virginia, that's exponential growth, that is,
the good kind, actually, very rapid exponential growth.

Maybe in a few months of exponential growth you will be like Plenty of Fish:
One guy, two old Dell computers, ads just via Google, and $10 million a year
in revenue.

So, at that point, do you want raise equity funding, say, spend some months
getting insulted by venture partners, finally get one or a few 'term sheets',
get some 'founder vesting' (where suddenly you go from owning 100% of your
company to owning 0% and have some chance of getting back to maybe 50% in four
years), an 'option pool', 'liquidity preferences' (where the company can be
sold for a lot of money but where you get $0.00), and a Board that understands
the term sheet much better than you do and otherwise hasn't written much code
in the last 10 years, doesn't understand your business, may never have started
a business, is arrogant and nasty, and can fire you and put in one of their
buddies who will do a 'pay to play down round' that leaves you with nearly 0%
of your company and the venture partners and their buddy with all the rest.

However, maybe you do want some venture funding. Actually, the uniques at
100,000 and growing quickly will get you some serious attention at a major
fraction of 'early stage IT' firms anywhere in the country. Right: As in a
Bogie movie, "We didn't pay attention to your story. We paid attention to your
$100." So the venture firms will pay attention to your uniques. Remember 'The
Little Red Hen' in Mother Goose? You should. We're talking, what, no more than
second grade here, right?

So, in NYC there are only Union Square, RRE, and a few more? Okay, but there's
no law that says that the venture firms on Winter Street, elsewhere in MA, in
Philadelphia, Maryland, or Virginia can't invest. And some Silicon Valley
firms can also invest, even if you are in NYC.

Net, the NYC 'startup scene', "backwater" or not, is nearly irrelevant.
Instead, for an entrepreneur, what matters is YOUR business. Can you write
your best code in NYC? Of COURSE you can: You can write good code nearly
anywhere with a good Internet connection and room for coffee, pizza, and a
good table, chair, and desktop.

What matters for YOU is the work YOU do. A necessary and sufficient condition
to correct the 'backwater' is for you and other entrepreneurs just to GET YOUR
DARNED WORK DONE.

There are lots of excuses not to do work, e.g., the dog ate my homework, my
landlord wouldn't fix the faucet, I couldn't buy wine at 2 AM, I can't find a
fantasy Samuel Johnson style 'coffee shop', NYC is a "backwater", and due to
Wall Street I can't hire a programmer.

Uh, we are learning one of the larger lessons in business: One reason there
are so few rich people is that there are so many ways for people to get off
the track.

Another excuse is explaining kindergarten level stuff to idiots on Hacker
News, an excuse I will now discard and get back to writing the rest of my
software.

