

New York City to displace Silicon Valley - wallflower
http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/01/08/new-york-to-top-silicon-valley/

======
Skeletor
The NYC tech scene has a ton of problems. One I encountered is recruiting good
programmers:

1) Living in NYC is expensive and if you are struggling on a startup you will
see friends making several hundred dollars an hour as consultants.

2) Wall Street pays software developers a ton of money and then trains them on
legacy technology and rewards them for having incredibly specialized skill
sets (I worked with a brilliant programmer in NY who only wrote ".h" header
C++ files. I mean that's all he ever did and made several hundred thousand a
year.)

3) VC's in NY hate software developers and believe that business people should
run everything. This is a deep prejudice, that comes from the finance people
on Wall St. treating their technology people poorly. In NY finance companies
I've seen incredibly talented programmers who make several hundred thousand a
year who were forced to use up a vacation day if they went home early to check
on their sick kids. I don't even understand why a company would pay people so
well and then treat them like crap.

4) Software developers in NY don't understand the value of equity, they have
no personal success stories to look at and are used to being paid huge sums of
cash in bonuses.

5) I can say this from years of experience: In NYC being an investment banker
or trader will get you laid, being an entrepreneur/programmer at a startup
totally won't.

~~~
redthrowaway
Even the tone of the article was dismissive of developers. "The previous
revolution was all silicon and algorithms. This one's social".

Tard.

~~~
tristan_louis
In what way is it dismissive of developers? I'd love to hear.

~~~
redthrowaway
>While the tech­nol­ogy world was long dom­i­nated by hard­ware and
algo­rithms, the cur­rent phase (often referred to as “the social web”) is all
about people.

The current King of Social was started by a pretty damned anti-social guy.
Running with a The Social Network analogy (I know, but bear with me), you seem
to be implying that the next phase of innovation will be driven by
Winlkevosses, not Zuckerbergs. That must be plainly false. Just because
"social" is a nice buzz word these days does not mean that the people making
these innovations are any more social than they used to be.

The general tone of your article seems to be that there are business guys in
New York, and business guys know business, and they'll just find some code
monkeys to build their great ideas. You ignore, however, that all of the major
innovations and the most successful startups have been mostly free from
interference from business types until later in their development.

Speaking plainly, the MBA who goes to a hacker conference with an idea for
"the next Facebook", who "just needs a programmer" is a laughingstock. The
hacker who builds the next Facebook, then gets funding while maintaining
control, is a god.

New York has MBAs, not hackers. That, of course, is a gross misrepresentation,
as there's a great hacker community there, but they tend to leave and go west
if they're interested in entrepreneurship.

You claimed that Silicon Valley startups could learn a thing or two from NYC
startups. I'd really like to see some examples of what you think NYC startups
are doing better, beyond simply making money. Bot herders make money from spam
and brokerage firms make money from sub-prime derivatives, but neither of
those are particularly admirable. If you want to find where people are making
cool things, you go to Silicon Valley (or MIT, or Carnegie Mellon, or
Waterloo, etc). If you want to attract top talent, you build cool things.

The genius hackers who will build the next Google or Facebook will come from
one of the top tech schools, and will migrate towards one of those centers in
order to work with other genius hackers. They will only bring on MBAs when the
VCs force them too, and that really doesn't speak too highly of NYC's future
as a hub of innovation.

~~~
tristan_louis
I beg to differ on your point. I honestly believe that what made Zuckerberg
successful was his "exposure" to the social components. Wherever you are, if
you're a geek, you're going to be a geek. But if you're in a city, you, as a
programmer, will be impacted in small ways, allowing you to create apps that
are more "social".

The article covers a number of aspects and business is one. Maybe it ought to
be clearer on the point of techies. My view is that techies are still
essential to building solid apps but as we move in the "social" phase of the
web, pure tech is not the only ingredient. There needs to be more in terms of
user experience and in terms of understanding what social can be (as far as
its potential). In order to do so, you need to be proactive about
understanding the "normals". And opportunities to do so are higher in New York
than they are in the valley.

If you're surrounded by hackers, you will get a good understanding of hacker
culture. But it will make it that much more difficult to understand what a
secretary or banker or model are interested in. So it makes it that much more
difficult to create products that are appealing outside of hacker circles.

In New York, there isn't a choice in terms of learning about those other
groups or not. We're all on top of each other so something as common as a
subway ride creates some of that exposure.

The fallacy I'm trying to break through is that New York doesn't have hackers.
It does and the number of hackers is growing. And that's the reason for the
warning I'm sounding (because end of day, the article is not a triumphant call
but rather a call for both sides to bring their best game).

NYC has a lot to learn from the valley in terms of fostering an engineering
culture (its own engineering culture is just nascent) but the valley has a lot
to learn about sectors outside of tech.

I respectfully disagree that the next Google or Facebook will come from a top
tech school. In fact, I'd warrant that the founders of that next big deal
company are currently at work in some place none of us could imagine (like who
would think that a kid from the midwest would come up with a successful web
browser. Well, ask Marc Andreesen and I'm sure he'd be willing to make that
bet :) ). The question is whether those kids will move to NYC or the valley
and I'd venture that, in the future, NYC may be more attractive than the
valley.

~~~
redthrowaway
Zuckerberg's exposure to "social components" was merely an extension of his
attending a top [non-tech] school. I still think your argument about being
surrounded by people somehow making you more suited to building a social app
is weak.

Like I said, I'll agree that New York has hackers. I'll stand by my assertion,
however, that they tend to leave if they're looking to launch a startup.
Especially given YC's dominance of the angel game and their requirement that
successful applicants move to the valley.

You could be right that the founders of the Next Big Thing are currently
toiling away in obscurity, but I doubt it. There's a hacker mindset that's
relatively adverse to large corporations. Also, while Andreesen may be a
legitimate example, the game has changed significantly since the early 90s.
There's a huge free-for-all right now in the startup biz, and it's all
happening in the valley.

Ultimately, however, we aren't talking about right now. We're talking about
the future. What does it take to make a community? Talent, and the attraction
thereof, sure. But it also takes culture. It takes a certain kind of
zeitgeist, one which is friendly to irresponsible nerds who would rather shoot
for gold than get a real job. New York simply doesn't have this culture. It's
too conservative, too greedy. New York is the Mecca of the Almighty Dollar,
and Silicon Valley is the Mecca of the Nerd. Barring some huge cultural shift,
I don't see that changing.

------
redthrowaway
Wow. No. This article seems to completely ignore what makes the valley the
epicenter of tech, and instead posits things that have very little impact as
being game changers. Car-driven societies aren't social? Silicon Valley
startups would do well to act like New York ones? Which would those be?

Hand-waving does not a hotbed of innovation make. It'll take more than
bullshit to make NYC into the Bay Area. I'll pay attention when they have top
tech universities and a culture friendly to innovation and entrepreneurship
rather than big money.

~~~
tristan_louis
So what makes the valley the epicenter of tech: talent and the ability to
attract more talent (at the end of the day, that's what makes a place the
epicenter of anything).

On the first, the valley does have an advantage today. On the second point,
that's changing, thus creating a potential issue.

That's addressed in this entry ([http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/01/08/silicon-
valley-vs-new-yor...](http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/01/08/silicon-valley-vs-
new-york-talent/)) : There is also a vir­tu­ous cir­cle to the rise of New
York turn­ing it into an ever more attrac­tive place for mem­bers of the tech
field. As Fred Wil­son recently pointed out: If you are a 22 year old man or
woman just start­ing out in life, would you rather live in sub­ur­bia and work
on a cam­pus or would you rather live in Williams­burg and work in Flatiron?
So the more suc­cess­ful the city becomes as a tech cen­ter, the more
attrac­tive it becomes to peo­ple who want to help it become more suc­cess­ful
as a tech cen­ter. The qual­ity of life ele­ment is going to be an impor­tant
chal­lenge the val­ley will have to change if they want to sur­vive the New
York onslaught.

~~~
redthrowaway
Williamsburg isn't particularly appealing to nerds, if only because we tend to
dislike hipsters. Most of us don't really care where we live if what we're
doing is building something new. To be honest, we probably won't go outside
much. Having a house where you can all work together is perfect in this
regard.

~~~
tristan_louis
There is a valuable argument to rooming together (though that's the case for a
lot of people in New York too). The difference is that in New York, you may
also be more likely to room with someone who's not a geek. And if you don't
get out (though you're bound to if for no other reason than to go and get
basic substenance like food), that person could bring some influences that may
help you code something new from a social standpoint.

And while it's true that Williamsburg isn't very appealing to geeks, I can
warrant that other parts of town are (eg. DUMBO)

~~~
redthrowaway
None of the benefits you claim come from living in NYC are any different from
those you get from going to college. Look at Reddit: a geek and a front man
lived across from eachother and bonded over video games. Would Reddit have
been successful without Ohanian? Probably not. Did they need to be in
Williamsburg to figure out their concept? No.

------
michaelty
Zed Shaw counters:

<http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2010-01-19.html>

<http://oppugn.us/posts/1286944278.html>

~~~
jeffreymcmanus
Etsy invalidates most of this

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bhoung
The strongest points are 1) and 2): monocultures have a negative impact, and
living in a city is inherently a social experience. Let's say NY and Silicon
Valley are equal in the extent they are monocultures, it's apparent Silicon
Valley comes out on top as the monoculture there is technology oriented. Now,
looking at population density and opportunity for forming diverse social
connections, I'd expect a larger denser city to come out on top. Answers to
the above seem to also be answers to Richard Florida's question of where do
the creative types go.

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ziadbc
The internet is a continuum beyond physical locality. That was why we (humans)
invented it.

It's no so much that the author is right or wrong, but he speaks from a
perspective that is not relevant. Good for the companies built outside of
Silicon Valley. Who said for Silicon Valley to win, everyone else needs to
lose?

~~~
jeffreymcmanus
That's partly true. Businesses, however, are still rooted in geography.

