
Pittsburgh as a Startup - joeyespo
https://medium.com/startups-and-investment/pittsburgh-as-a-startup-7afe48bc96d6#.9tonkiccm
======
rdl
Biggest things I'd do for Pittsburgh (I'm from Philadelphia originally, but I
think that's a lost cause):

1) Fix non-competes (state law; maybe fix state wide, or just in the city?) --
parity with California

2) Make life as easy as possible for founders (city and state regulations
about employment, etc. should be simple and minimal up to 50-500 employees)

3) Try to get earmarked visas for founders

4) Promote Pittsburgh in China/India. Both for founders and to convince
parents/families/etc. of potential hires that Pittsburgh is a great place to
live and work.

5) Encourage CMU/Pitt/etc to do some kind of "part time study" or something so
students can start startups, particularly those on student visas. Maybe model
it on how waterloo does their coop program

6) High speed Internet in as many houses/offices as possible; deregulation,
inviting Google Fiber, etc. Possibly allow someone to run gigabit multi-family
dwelling Internet without having to cover ever region of the city

7) Focus on hard science/robotics/etc. as a cluster, vs. media, social media,
finance, etc. A cluster has higher effective size and density.

~~~
dbcurtis
non-competes came up the last the Pittsburgh was discussed here. That is
certainly a biggie. The state could pass a law and have done with it, but
also, startups could be coached to drop non-compete clauses from their hiring
offers. And of course, hires could cross that section out before accepting --
and be willing to walk away if that doesn't work.

~~~
rdl
It's not usually the startups having non-competes which are the problem --
it's the previous bigco employers of people startups want to hire, or people
who want to found startups.

~~~
dbcurtis
Good point. That needs a legislative solution.

~~~
rdl
You might be able to get the big "incumbent" tech employers in a region,
specifically in some industries you care about, to voluntarily give up these
non-competes from new or existing contracts, in exchange for the benefits of
being part of a vibrant startup community. In some industries and markets it
might just take a couple companies -- in WA, if Microsoft, Amazon, and a
couple others did it, that should be enough.

But legislation (or court action) is probably the best solution.

------
keiferski
As a Pittsburgh native, it's been exciting to see the city develop over the
past decade.

One of the things that nearly everyone seems to forget about Pittsburgh is
that is was once one of the single largest business and manufacturing cities
in the country, if not the world. Some of the world's richest men lived and
worked in Pittsburgh, including Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, H. J. Heinz,
and George Westinghouse, to name a few. Nikola Tesla spent some time here, as
well. Many streets are named after industrialists, which adds a unique flavor.

If anything, Pittsburgh's recent rise is a _return_ to success.

~~~
shas3
There's certainly a hipster bubble in Pittsburgh around Oakland, Shadyside,
-W-e-s-t- East Liberty, Southside, and Squirrel Hill which are the
neighborhoods around CMU and U Pitt. The rest of Pittsburgh and the suburban
region is pretty rough, though. Personally, I loved North Hills, Mt. Lebanon,
and Dormont. But the start-up quality is only present in the neighborhoods
abutting CMU and U Pitt. As a non-white, we were sometimes bothered by the
extreme whiteness and slight red-necky feel of non-East End neighborhoods.

Edit: as pointed out by comments below, East Liberty.

~~~
keiferski
Well, I'm not completely sure that I trust your judgement, as you left out the
single biggest hipster area of Lawrenceville and also spelled "East Liberty"
as "West Liberty," which is an entirely different area.

That said... _the extreme whiteness and slight red-necky feel of non-East End
neighborhoods._

...is definitely still an issue. It's getting better though, and for the most
part anywhere within the city limits is relatively diverse. Pittsburgh's
biggest problem is that the segregation is by neighborhood. It's comparable to
Chicago, in many ways.

~~~
shas3
Mine is but one perspective, as most comments everywhere are. One can also add
Bloomfield to the list of neighborhoods with hipster-gentrification.

------
rexreed
No offense as I'm sure there's some awesome stuff happening in Pittsburgh, but
EVERY "up and coming" city with an innovation ecosystem can write this very
same piece about themselves. See how Detroit, Baltimore, Philly, Raleigh, New
Orleans, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Omaha, Miami, etc. etc. etc.
all write about themselves. There's nothing here to say WHY a gigantic shift
in the way investment capital is being deployed should be redeployed. Why
people with talent and knowledge capital should LEAVE their current places of
employment and residence to pick up and move to an unknown. Why people with
experience and mentorship building substantial and sizable companies should
all of a sudden start doing it in places that they aren't already doing it.
WHY? Those questions are never answered. And this is why all those cities
above keep striving. As they should. But to say that Pittsburgh is doing
something special that other cities aren't doing in many of the same ways
requires observing what's happening out there.

I'd love to see an update to this article with a compare and contrast. With a
list of the successes. With comparisons to other cities successes (especially
those of similar size and grit). And perhaps some analysis as to why it's
happening in Pittsburgh and not other places (if it is indeed happening like
that)

~~~
cfallin
> EVERY "up and coming" city [ ... ] Detroit, Baltimore, Philly, Raleigh, New
> Orleans, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Omaha, Miami [ ... ]

One unique factor about Pittsburgh is its academic presence, in both
CS/engineering (Carnegie Mellon) and medical fields (University of
Pittsburgh). At least CMU has spawned off a number of research startups, has
created a burgeoning robotics community (NREC, etc), and has attracted major
tech companies to create offices here: Google, Facebook, Uber, Apple, etc. I'm
not sure you could say that about many of the other second-tier cities on your
list. Human/intellectual capital is a big part of city momentum.

~~~
exelius
Pittsburgh is also dirt cheap; there are entire neighborhoods that are
essentially abandoned. You can buy a house in decent structural condition for
under $50,000. And it's been so depressed for so long that there's an enormous
amount of infrastructure that essentially sits unused. Companies can use that
to externalize costs, which makes it very attractive IMO.

~~~
rexreed
I can say the same for Baltimore and Philly. In fact, Pittsburgh is much the
same as most cities that used to be the leading innovative areas during the
Industrial Revolution and Gilded Age.

~~~
exelius
Pittsburgh doesn't have the crime / corruption problems (largely the same IMO
- you can't expect citizens to follow the law if the politicians don't) that
Baltimore and Philly do.

~~~
55acdda48ab5
Philly and Baltimore (and Maryland) also have ridiculous taxes. City wage
taxes and business revenue (not profit) tax, and relatively high state taxes.
You would have to be insane to locate your new business in the city of
Philadelphia, for example. The Delaware Valley region is fine, but not the
city.

Most of the old northern industrial states and cities are so riddled with
taxes and regulations and union corruption it's hard sell to start up a
business there. You'd be better off carpet-bagging to business friendly
locales.

People are moving in large numbers to Florida and Nevada for sound reasons.

------
southphillyman
I wonder why Philadelphia hasn't even been considered as a start up hub.

Better weather than Pittsburgh, NYC, or Boston

Nothing on par with CMU.... but Upenn, Drexel, and Princeton are in the area.
As are a ton of other schools.

Pretty good size developer base with people working in Telecom,healthcare,
education, and finance.

Close to NYC and DC

Affordable even after recent gentrification

Existing start up scene with some examples of local success (duckduckgo)

Much more interesting and hip city when compared to Pittsburgh/Boston

~~~
SmellTheGlove
As a native Philadelphian who now lives closer to Boston, my perspective -
Philly has rampant corruption and I'd be nervous about investing in the city
(compared to NYC or Boston). The local talent market is much better suited for
healthcare than tech. And what talent there is can easily go to DC or NYC,
where there are larger job markets.

At least for me, 10+ years ago when I moved back to Philly after going to
college in VA, I lasted less than a year before going to DC where the better
opportunities were. My perception is that it is still true today.

My family is still all in South Philly and the close in suburbs so I haven't
completely lost touch. I'd totally move back for the right opportunity.

~~~
noer
> Philly has rampant corruption and I'd be nervous about investing in the city
> (compared to NYC or Boston)

Chicago is corrupt as they come and there's a pretty robust startup scene.

~~~
pm90
The difference is that its the only big city in the midwest. So if you're an
engineer in Philly you could easily move to NYC/DC for work. Not so much for
someone in the midwest who wants to work in the midwest.

------
server_bot
I’ve been in Pittsburgh 6 years now - worked in local tech, currently a grad
student at CMU. From my perspective, the “grassroots” community is a massive
factor in the region’s success. I’ve gotten more out of the active and
inclusive tech community then out of proximity to big-name companies or an
influx of investors. I’m not saying those things aren’t important or don’t
drive the creation of the community I benefit from, but my touchpoint with the
tech scene has been motivated and approachable developers (and aspiring
developers!).

Example: there’s a local meetup with 2,200 members
([http://www.codeandsupply.co/](http://www.codeandsupply.co/)) and weekly
talks ranging from programming 101 to effectively scaling a micro-service
architecture. They’re putting on a conference in August where I’ll be able to
see Richard Stallman, Larry Wall, and Joe Armstrong speak for a $70 dollar
ticket price (student price, regular tickets are still only a fraction of what
you’d expect).

~~~
abglassman
That's [http://abstractions.io/](http://abstractions.io/) \- I'll be there too
as a CFP speaker! They got a dynamite lineup of invited speakers, and the CFP
topics are pretty exciting, too.

------
biswaroop
One word: bicycles [1].

In summary, make it the most bicycle and pedestrian friendly research city in
the world, and wait for founders to turn into investors.

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/pgh.html](http://paulgraham.com/pgh.html)

------
matt_wulfeck
If a city/state wants to be a startup it better demolish any semblance of
noncompete agreements against employees.

This is an often overlooked feature of California. Skills and talent flowing
freely between companies is a benefit to the entire ecosystem and something
California did right very early on.

~~~
ghaff
While it's great that California basically doesn't have noncompetes, I'm
skeptical that there is such a bright line relationship between the number of
startup companies/amount of VC money in California and this fact.
Massachusetts has, unfortunately, not been able to change the law in large
part because of lobbying by some big employers yet does pretty well on the
tech company creation front. (Less than CA but across a broader scope of
businesses.)

But, if lack of non-competes are such a big deal, maybe Hawaii will become a
tech hub, (Mostly :-))

------
bluedino
The location doesn't matter. Companies will pop up where they are going to pop
up. Everyone writes an essay about why their city is so great and you should
move there so you can build your company.

Case in point: Salt Lake City/Provo in the 80's

You had companies like Novell and WordPerfect that dominated entire markets.
Why Salt Lake City? The weather isn't "great" (unless you like to ski). It's
not that large of a metro area, barely over a million people. There are a lot
of Mormons (they're the weird people that don't drink caffeine). It's not
diverse at all, just a bunch of white Mormons.

But it worked.

~~~
ksenzee
a) Mormons drink caffeine. I am a card-carrying Mormon, so if you argue this
point with me your sources had better be pretty good.

b) Sure, companies pop up where they pop up, but for a city to become a hub
for something, you need more than a couple of companies popping up. I wouldn't
say Orem was exactly a tech hub in the 80s. You could argue the point better
now, judging from the recent BuzzFeed article.

~~~
bluedino
>> Mormons drink caffeine.

I had some friends who were Mormon growing up, they didn't drink caffeinated
soda, coffee, tea, and of course alcohol. Is that uncommon in the Mormon
world?

~~~
aji
The rules changed and last I heard it was something along the lines of only
hot caffeinated drinks were forbidden, so no coffee tea etc, and things like
Coke and Pepsi are fine.

~~~
ksenzee
Rules haven't changed. They just issued a clarification. Most of us have been
drinking all the Dr. Pepper we want for years.

------
rwhitman
All of Pennsylvania in general is highly undervalued. I spend one or two
weekends in PA every month and am always puzzled by how little attention and
investment there has been in the state during the last few economic booms.

PA is littered with top notch universities from corner to corner. It's
culturally and historically richer than almost anywhere else in the US. You
have a lush, green resource-rich landscape as far as the eye can see (and
definitely no water scarcity). Absurdly affordable housing with a surplus of
incredible historic architecture. Walkable colonial-era villages and small
tightly clustered cities with intact historic shopping districts. Endless
square footage of unused warehouse spaces. Huge beautiful parks including old
growth forests, mountains, rivers. Fairly decent mass transit in the Philly
area at least, (and a lot of legacy transit infrastructure ready to spring
back to life at some point).

I'm not just talking about Philly and Pittsburgh either - so many smaller
"rust belt" type cities in PA with so much to offer that are just completely
overlooked. Like the entire Lehigh Valley for instance. Harrisburg is actually
a really cool city when you get to know it - very diverse, lots of smart
people there, excellent breweries and a lot of economic growth.

Plus we often overlook the fact that Pennsylvanians largely founded the SF Bay
Area in many ways - look at the map of the SF Bay and you'll see the markers
of PA everywhere. (hint the street grid of San Francisco is named after
Philadelphia's)..

I think the main things that have held back PA is 1) it's been overshadowed by
NYC 2) property taxes are absurdly high 3) it's still got a rust belt stigma
to shake..

But otherwise for tech folks if you've never been it's really worth checking
out

~~~
dionidium
_It 's culturally and historically richer than almost anywhere else in the
US._

I _love_ Pittsburgh. But cities like Cincinnati and St. Louis and Nashville
deserve a seat at that table, too. In general, the rust belt gets a bad rap.
It's full of old, interesting cities that are packed with cultural
institutions and fascinating history. They deserve a lot more attention than
they get.

------
Animats
Pittsburgh should have been the automatic driving hub. CMU was very active in
that area. But although there's some automatic driving work there, it's not
the center of that activity.

It's a center of industrial robotics activity, but doesn't get much press for
it.

~~~
ckinnan
Last I heard, Uber's self-driving research base is in Pittsburgh.
[http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/02/uber-opening-robotics-
resea...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/02/uber-opening-robotics-research-
facility-in-pittsburgh-to-build-self-driving-cars/)

------
bsder
Yet a lot of the tech startups seems to _leave_ Pittsburgh once they reach the
next level. (I seem to remember some vintage clothing startup thing as being
the most recent casualty).

People might want to figure out _why_.

------
grillvogel
RIP Pittsburgh

------
minimaxir
[deleted]

~~~
melling
"Extremely poor weather"

It's not Silicon Valley weather. How much worse is it than Boston or New York,
other startup hubs?

~~~
crispyambulance
The weather doesn't matter.

Pittsburgh is a perfectly fine place to take an idea and create a business
around it. There is access to talent, office space, manufacturing space,
vendors, services, customers, and other industries. It ALSO has an airport,
internet access, roads, electricity and running water. All of these are
relatively low in cost as is real-estate if you want to live in a house.

What might be an issue is getting regular visitations from VC's. VC's don't
have much presence there, but will fly in if sufficiently motivated. That said
if you don't need regular meetings with VC's... Pittsburgh is pretty awesome.

At some point, people have to start wondering how miraculous it is that start-
ups can deign to exist in such a comically expensive place as the Bay area.

~~~
stcredzero
How much influence does the "golf course" of Burning Man still have on the Bay
Area?

