
Can You Really Build A Great Tech Firm Outside Silicon Valley? - bjonathan
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/14/can-you-really-build-a-great-tech-firm-outside-silicon-valley/
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notahacker
Am I the only person that's _alarmed_ that some VCs whose supposed expertise
in the world of tech startups qualifies them to invest millions of dollars may
be incapable of acknowledging the success or potential for success of anything
beyond a 30 mile radius of Sand Hill Road

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mgkimsal
No, you're not.

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eaxitect
I feel the same, I think most of VC's badly bias themselves

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binarycheese
Yes. But you might not get the Silicon Valley buzz like some "answers"
websites are getting.

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vannevar
Do people still start real technology companies in Silicon Valley? It seems
like everything coming out of there these days is some variety of web mashup.
The semiconductor launched the original Valley ecosystem, the Internet
launched the current one. Where is the technological foundation for the next
wave?

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knieveltech
<http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page>

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jdp23
A lot of great companies have come from outside the Valley and Mark does a
good job of outlining all the advantages ...

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jiffylu
Mark is right to point out that each geographic region has its advantages.
Places like Boston may not be known for home runs in the consumer space but
because of MIT, it's been known to produce some heavy tech winners (A123
systems, ITA, kiva)

There's also a reason why Google has offices in Seattle, Boston, NYC, and
soon, Pittsburgh. Hiring is tough in the valley and there's an abundance of
talent elsewhere.

If you want to innovate on web technology, the valley is the place to be. If
you want to innovate on business models, content, or heavy technology (to name
a few) there are other places where you can thrive.

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cyrus_
Google has had a small office in Pittsburgh for a few years. They moved into a
much bigger space recently and are hiring pretty ferociously out of CMU.

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jiffylu
Yeah I heard they were heavily targeting CMU. Here are some pictures of the
new offices.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/google-pittsburgh-
office-2011...](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-pittsburgh-
office-2011-2#)

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dr_
Not sure if I agree with this article. None of the LA companies he mentions
have been home runs or anything even close. And NYC is a different story
altogether - there's one VC (USV) basically trying to run the entire show,
with a supporting cast here and there and even their biggest "success" to date
(Twitter) is really based in Northern California. Other companies like 4square
are proving to be succesful, but even they finally had to open operations in
the SF/Valley area because they couldn't get enough talent in NYC, and ones
like drop.io flopped cause they just couldn't get traction despite having a
talented team.

I think when it comes to developing pure tech companies - like hardware
(although that's moving to Asia, except for "Design") and hardcore software,
the Valley will always be the place for those companies. Places like LA/NYC,
etc. will use this technology to enhance whatever industries are a dominant
part of their respective economies.

I say this living in the NYC metropolitan area. Personally I would love to see
the Wall Streeters vanish and be replaced by tech companies doing cool,
interesting stuff. But I know it won't happen.

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gyardley
Union Square Ventures is only a small part of the NYC funding landscape. First
Round, Betaworks, RRE, DFJ Gotham, IA Ventures, Starvest, SAVP, Softbank, Rho,
Greycroft, and that's just off the top of my head (I know I'm missing some),
in addition to firms like Spark / True / Kodiak / CRV that often come here to
invest and Sand Hill Road firms that are newly opening offices here like
Canaan and Accel.

Don't get me wrong, USV is a great firm to work with, but you can comfortably
do a round in NYC without ever having to talk to them. Don't let the fact that
Fred has a popular blog blind you to the rest of the ecosystem.

I also think you're underestimating how much interesting technology there is
in NYC. Yes, a lot of it is related to advertising or the financial sector.
But the type of scale many of these companies are working with requires
'hardcore software' by anyone's definition.

I do agree that recruiting is hard here, but recruiting is hard everywhere.

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sroussey
Well, the part that says "young engineers who want to make $200,000 or more"
in the Valley, will only make engineers want to move to the valley... Who has
the name of a recruiter? Maybe it is time for me to move out of LA and to the
Valley!

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sroussey
So, you know, those comments don't help his cause...

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Dylanlacey
Comments are meant to enrich a discussion and provide alternative views and
corroboration, not support the article under discussion's POV slavishly.

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JCB_K
If you've got a good idea, and you're passionate for it, you don't need
Silcion Valley.

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jonny_eh
This may be naive, but other than the local talent pool, why does it matter
where you're located? It's relatively cheap to fly around the continent. On
top of that, communication has never been so cheap and easy.

When I visit a website, as a user or customer, I could care less where that
site was designed or is hosted.

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sfphotoarts
It does matter, culture, infrastructure, proximity to events/meetups etc. Walk
to see customers, competitors, etc. Can't go to a bar without ending up
debating which key value store to use for high throughput write operations, or
which python library is better for imap attachment handling, or which ruby gem
works the best for hooking up facet search to your app.

Add to that, its also just really beautiful here and we don't spend half the
year buried under snow or sweltering in heat. And of course SF women are the
best in the country :)

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yakto
> SF women are the best in the country

Yeah, all 218 of them.

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wslh
There is a high potential for the first VCs/Angels who search opportunities
outside SV and USA, main cities of Europe, Israel, etc.

I find it the most obvious <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage> situation.

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wglb
It seems that TFA is answering a slighty different question: "Can you find a
great VC investment company outside of SHR". The difference is important, as
there are certainly a few Tech Firms in, oh, Chicago, and Japan, New York who
are bootstrapped. That is, their goal is more "how do I get my first paying
customer" than "i need millions of eyeballs".

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patrickgzill
I remember dealing with this in 1998 or so, at a company located just outside
Philadelphia.

The new sales director, and the marketing director, were from SV and made it
clear they were in a backwater - they may as well have told us that traveling
through hyperspace wasn't like dusting crops.

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Skillset
Interesting, something of a successor to the classic Paul Graham essay, "How
to Be Silicon Valley" (May 2006):
<http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html>

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a5seo
The headline makes me think Arrington's first earnout calculation from AOL is
close at hand and he needs a few extra pageviews to make it.

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sroussey
I don't think so, this was a subject at last weeks Twiistup8.

