

Start-Up New York? - llambda
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/11/start-new-york/536/

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jaysonelliot
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.

~~~
jamesbritt
_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.

~~~
maratd
> 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.

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barry-cotter
Don't waste your time reading it.

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).

~~~
strmpnk
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.

~~~
billpatrianakos
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.

------
Duff
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.

~~~
drumdance
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.

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kitanata
Nope, but it might be Columbus, Ohio. Don't believe me?

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2011/11/18/the-
best-c...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2011/11/18/the-best-cities-
for-technology-jobs/)

<http://614columbus.com/article/2011-a-tech-odyssey-3528/>

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.

~~~
GBKS
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.

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apechai
It depends what you mean by a 'start-up'.

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.

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kloncks
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.

Any ideas?

~~~
strmpnk
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.

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ChrisLTD
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.

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SanjayUttam
"The New York Times over the weekend posted this great map showing the
location of more than 400 New York City start-ups ..."

At some point, we're going to re-visit the definition of "Start-Up".
Google/Twitter/FB?

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cletus
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.

[1]:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020453140457705...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204531404577050661264784408.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

~~~
vaksel
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

~~~
localhost3000
i can assure you that it does not cost $3k / mo to live below 50th st. that is
a massive exaggeration.

~~~
vaksel
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

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billpatrianakos
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.

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Bdennyw
No

