
Battle of the Tech Ecosystems: Boston vs. New York - wmougayar
http://startupmanagement.org/2013/09/14/battle-of-the-tech-ecosystems-boston-vs-new-york-with-mattermark-data/
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pingswept
Somerville (bordering Boston and Cambridge) is home to one of the world's
largest makerspaces: [http://artisansasylum.com](http://artisansasylum.com)
and a big cleantech incubator:
[http://greentownlabs.com/](http://greentownlabs.com/)

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nickpinkston
The area between Kendall and Davis Squares must be on some list of most
bookstores, coffeeshops, etc. with so many amazing people to bump into.

I live in SF, but I have a special place in my heart for this area because the
density and diversity of thought that you just don't get in SF/SV.

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pingswept
Hey, that's where you bumped into me.

Yeah, the Cambridge/Somerville nexus is pretty amazing.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html)

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SwellJoe
Silicon Valley.

If you're moving somewhere, why waste time on a city that is distant second,
in terms of startup ecosystems? It's not like Boston or NYC are significantly
cheaper than the valley.

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seiji
My short list of pro-NYC (and thereby anti-SF) points:

There's plenty of tech stuff and tech people in NYC. That little kickstarter
site isn't in san mateo after all. Your new best friend digital ocean isn't
making white house rooms across from twitter. etsy is allowed to be as dumb as
it wants.

In NYC you have non-scary transit running 24 hours that'll take you home
because everybody is within walking distance of a metro station (and not just
to a parking lot where you pick up your car then drive another 30 minutes home
while tired at 2am).

Population. SF: 800k (bay area entire: 7 million, but over 40+ miles) NYC: 8
million. In NYC you have lots more people _within transit range_ making
people-involved things like meetings, dating, and varied social contexts
immensely easier (and more interesting, exciting, unexpected, varied, ...).

NYC has its street people population under control so it's less scary walking
around fighting off beggars are street pooers.

NYC's parks are kinda great.

and best of all, no Karl.

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ohWhatever
Your practical, working knowledge of the NYC subway system is way off the
mark. If I had to make an estimate, I'd say you've never been required to
depend on the subway beyond the splendid realms of Wall Street and Midtown.
Maybe a small tidbit of Williamsburg too. Even in those parts Taxi cabs and
car service reign supreme, especially when drunk at 2AM (the social context of
dating).

That said, I'd like to point out that every city has it's own learning curve,
and there's no real way to be honest, and make promises to transplants that
any given city's streets will be paved with gold. (...unless, of course, you
literally pave them with gold yourself)

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seiji
Well, living near transit can be a goal or not. If one decides to not live
near a station, that's one's own predicament.

(as for my living credentials go, I've lived in Astoria, Harlem, Jersey City,
Long Island City, UWS, ... it's not a park place penthouse, but it is a non-
bank-breaking life.)

NYC lets you live near a station much easier than in SF with its linear (in-
city) one-line system with a total of _seven_ entire usable city stops.

I think I can destroy your argument with: how many daily private bus services
do companies run in NYC vs SF for employees to get from Where They Want To
Live to their prescribed daytime slavery zones?

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isalmon
When we discuss "Tech Ecosystem" \- why does it always have to be about
funding? There are so many different factors that can make a certain area
better or worse: real estate prices, salaries (esp. for engineers), access to
colleges, etc. Besides, not every tech company is VC-backed.

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xfax
I recently moved to NYC to join a startup and I must say the community is
thriving here. You can find a lot of like-minded people at local Meetups.

This was on the front page a couple of days ago - should give you a good idea
of ecosystem here: [http://www.cbinsights.com/new-york-venture-
capital](http://www.cbinsights.com/new-york-venture-capital)

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NathanKP
Personally I'm a big fan of the NYC startup scene. First of all if you are
creating a B2B that isn't selling to tech companies then NYC is ideal. Many
times we've been able to take a quick subway ride across town to pitch our
product at the NYC headquarters of some large company that is interested in
our product. And that's helped us sell our product to businesses like Hugo
Boss and Ralph Lauren.

Second of all I like the community. There are lots of interesting meetups and
hackathons going on, and while I'm sure SF has more I feel that NYC has more
than enough to satisfy me.

And third I like the energy of NYC. It is a great city to accomplish things in
because it really has an infective spirit of getting things done. It's hard
for me to explain, but the city is always busy and there are always people
around you working and getting things done.

Anyway I don't know much about the Boston scene so I can't properly compare
the two, but I can say that I like NYC a lot.

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erichmond
I spent 6 years in the boston tech startup scene (2004-2010) and have spent
2010-2013 here in the NY tech startup scene.

My quick observations:

\- Better engineers in Boston \- Larger thinking business ideas in NYC

Fusing the business ambition of NYC with the technical acumen of Boston would
be an amazing ecosystem.

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unabridged
This site is purposely made hard to read if you do not have javascript
enabled. The creator should be ashamed of himself.

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jrkelly
Boston has such a lead in the biotech ecosystem compared to anywhere else that
I wonder if they could establish a tech niche of bio/pharma-related tech.
Chasing traditional consumer mobile/web-tech seems like swimming upstream in
Boston.

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photorized
We are closer to NYC (Stamford CT) - but as far as startups are concerned, I
like Boston ecosystem more. More vision.

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arxpoetica
Boston Strong.

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wmougayar
Good momentum in Boston startup tech, for sure.

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stephenhuey
When I was living there, it was encouraging interacting with people at various
hubs of activity around town such as the Cambridge Innovation Center and
Dogpatch Labs.

