

Enough with the Boston Start-up Inferiority Complex - byosko
http://buzzboston.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/enough-with-the-boston-inferiority-complex/
Boston is tied with San Jose in Q2 for total number of venture-backed IPOs.
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pg
I wish I could agree with this, but as someone who switches back and forth
between the two every year, Boston is way behind.

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aston
To be fair, the author's more arguing that Boston's not behind in the more
traditional start scene. For YC stuff, the Valley seems much more willing to
go in big on less mature and potentially less profitable companies. No IPO's
have happened in the web 2.0 space, which demonstrates that his metric is
blind to the sort of thing you care about most.

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bharath
In many ways, both Boston and Silicon Valley have a lot in common -- cities
with character that attract likely startup founders, world class universities,
a well developed VC community and so on. But they differ in a couple of ways
(1) Boston is unbearably cold 6 months of the year (2) Silicon Valley has a
more vibrant immigrant community. While (2) may not matter much in the case of
Web related startups (for reasons that I cant really figure out, I have seen
fewer immigrants gravitate towards founder positions in web based startups),
the effect is more pronounced in the case of Enterprise startups. Every other
enterprise startup in the Bay Area seems to have an immigrant as a co-founder
-- often in the role of CTO or VP of Engg.

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champion
I think I read recently that the VC money invested in Boston-area is about
1/4th that of Silicon Valley. (For "IT" tech, not biotech.)

I like how Scott Kirsner, Globe reporter, compared it to the Red Sox vs.
Yankees rivarly. The Sox have a huge budget compared to most teams, except the
Yankees. And while the Sox have a complex about the Yankees, the Yankees
barely know their is a rivalry. Can't go wrong with Red Sox analogies ;-)

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aston
The Yankees don't know there's a rivalry? You're kidding yourself. If you've
been to a Sox/Yankees game in either Boston or the Bronx, you know the hate is
mutual.

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ivankirigin
I lived in NYC for 2 years and have been in Boston for 3. New Yorkers care
much less about the RedSox than Bostonians care about the Yankees.

Similarly, I have to agree with the grandparent that people in the valley
don't think about Boston much.

But this navel-gazing turns me off. If you're working on a startup and want to
live in Boston, just forget it and get to work.

Pining for a better environment is very different than building it.

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far33d
That's because bostonians care about the redsox way more than newyorkers care
about the yankees. WAY more.

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ivankirigin
I can believe that.

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herdrick
Is San Francisco included in the San Jose metro region? If not, then probably
the entire upper half of the peninsula isn't included in the comparison.

Looks like it is, though. That's weird.

