

How Big Is The NYC Tech Sector? - cwan
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/10/how-big-is-the-nyc-tech-sector.html

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mathattack
One thing that makes counting tough is that in NYC there isn't a hard divide
between tech and non-tech, and many firms support niche verticals. Rather than
general purpose Big Data companies, we have Big Data for Media, or Big Data
for Finance.

The industries supported also wind up looking very technical. Is an exchange a
place where stocks are traded, or a technology where stocks are traded? It's
looking more like the latter. Are digital media companies part of media, or
part of technology?

For those into applied technology, this is the beauty of the NYC tech scene.
Perhaps it's a little less glamorous for researchers.

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sethbannon
It doesn't seem like "positions that require 'advanced tech sklls'" is the
right measure for the size of the NYC tech sector. Surely Foursquare's office
manager is a part of NYC's tech sector, but their job likely doesn't require
"advanced tech skills".

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lnanek2
As someone on both coasts often, NYC seems to have many fewer tech events. I
might get a hackathon or two a month in NYC, but in SF/SV sometimes there are
7 in a single weekend and it is rare to have a weekend without one. The prizes
are much better too. A 5k purse is normal, but they often go up to 40k or even
850k investment for the top two with the upcoming LAUNCH hackathon. The
conference situation is the same. You get much bigger, much more frequent,
with many more companies in SF/SV. If you are looking to do business
development or just find a job, your chances are much better. I'm not saying
NYC is bad, it has something. The something it has is just much less than the
tech center of the country.

~~~
JohnTHaller
As someone based in NYC (since 1996) but debating a move to SF, I'd agree. I
was here through the .com boom and used to attend NYNMA events (remember
those?), but NYC has never really been tech startup-oriented in the way SF is.
They've tried, what with billing it as 'Silicon Alley' and all, but it never
really seemed to take hold. And the big tech events where they'd have
Bloomberg as a keynote and then do a handful of tech demos... the demos would
be things that we'd seen before coming out of SF and seemed like copycat
products.

A big part of it is the culture here. If you tell someone in NYC that you're
bootstrapping a startup out of your living room, the response is 'oh, so
you're unemployed'. Do the same in a conversation in SF and people start
talking about who might be a good fit for you to meet. So, I wouldn't
recommend starting a tech company here.

Don't get me wrong, NYC is a great place for tech. But I'm talking about tech
in service to financial services institutions. So, web development, financial
software, etc. And mostly around Microsoft tech (ASP.NET, SQL nowadays). I've
worked at corporate banks, I've built ecommerce systems, I've built events
management systems. They've paid the bills. But the dream change-the-world
startup idea? It's just not part of the culture here. Fashion? Absolutely.
Food? Sure. Music? Maybe. But tech that's not gonna be a financial services
play? I'd suggest looking elsewhere.

~~~
rexreed
Where's a good place to find (and list) tech events that happen in NYC?

~~~
dirn
There's a pretty young subreddit for this
[http://www.reddit.com/r/nyctech](http://www.reddit.com/r/nyctech).

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morgante
The big confusion is whether we're trying to measure the "tech sector" or the
"startup sector." The former is likely a superset of the latter, and the
latter possibly includes companies which aren't necessarily in the former.

Should I be counted as part of the NYC tech sector? I'm working in a technical
role at a media startup. Is that more or less techy than an office manager at
a tech startup?

Purely anecdotally, the tech scene in NYC still feels extremely intimate. It's
easy to know/recognize a lot of people at any tech event.

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segmondy
Instead of asking how big is the sector? I believe the real question should
be, How joined/fragmented is it? I won't call it a problem, but the difference
between CA and other places is that other places are much fragmented and
disjointed. NYC tech sector might be large, but it doesn't have that CA appeal
because everyone is everywhere. If they were all brought together into the
same region it would bubble up like Silicon Valley.

~~~
potatolicious
Er... The Bay Area's tech scene stretches all the way from San Francisco down
to San Jose (and a bit beyond, even). That's a 50 mile drive all by itself. I
recall when living in SF that the SF tech scene and SV tech scene were eerily
separate because of the city/suburb divide. It's far from unified.

Compare with the tech scene in NYC which is almost entirely based in Manhattan
- a 5-mile stretch of it no less (from Bowling Green up to 59th St), that you
can traverse by train or cab in a matter of 20-25 minutes.

If pure concentration of people/companies is the X-factor, NYC should've
trounced California by now :P

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free652
NYC's financial industry pays well for tech jobs, I'd guess more people get a
nice 9-5 job with a good salary vs a startup job with a lot of pressure.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I'd guess more people get a nice 9-5 job with a good salary vs a startup job
> with a lot of pressure.

NYC financial jobs are _not_ 9-5 or without a lot of pressure.

For any job that you're likely to get in your 20s, NYC finance jobs pay worse,
have far longer hours, and are much more high-pressure.

Beyond your 20s, it varies greatly by level of seniority, so it gets tougher
to compare, but the high-paying jobs still require very long hours.

~~~
dev_jim
> For any job that you're likely to get in your 20s, NYC finance jobs pay
> worse, have far longer hours, and are much more high-pressure.

If you're working in the front office then your pay is going to be a multiple
of a startup job. And it's going to be significantly higher then any
established company in the area (Amazon, Facebook, Google). A good rule of
thumb is your base will be similar what established companies pay and your
bonus is all gravy.

Pressure and hours vary by firm. It's hard to generalize.

~~~
bigbang
I'm not sure how much bonuses software engineers get. I've heard it's great
for bankers, traders etc. But do software engineers(who work on building
infra/tools, not the kind who write trading algos) get paid good bonuses as
well? By good I mean 30%+

~~~
dev_jim
The closer to the trade you are the higher bonus is as a percentage of your
total comp. I did mention "front office" in my original post.

\- Infrastructure is vital to most trades. Bonuses are going to more than 30%
if you're on the cutting edge here - prop shops, some technology oriented
hedge funds, and some banks.

\- If by tools you mean GUIs then no.

\- Engineers who write trading algos (or more likely algo components that are
used by a trader at a higher level) will have a bonus that is more than 30%.

~~~
bigbang
Thanks for the clarification. Is it feasible to get into a prop shop or hedge
fund as a programmer and "graduate" to trader? How common is it?

~~~
dev_jim
Common enough. Skills are so specialized thhough that it doesn't always make
sense to switch though. Its a different career track, not a promotion. Top end
trader will make more but top end developer will make more then the average
trader. You should focus on what you are good at.

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nrivadeneira
Speaking from my own experience, the NYC startup community is large and very
active. I'm hoping this growth continues after we get a new mayor in.

~~~
wikiburner
I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you worried De Blasio will negatively
impact the startup sector?

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nrivadeneira
I'm saying that Mayor Bloomberg has been highly proactive in pushing the tech
and startup sector forward. It would be hard to deny that he's partially
responsible for fostering the growth that's occurred in NYC. I don't know that
the next mayor will be quite as bullish on tech as Bloomberg was. Also, I'm
suggesting there may be a reduction in growth, not a decline. I wouldn't
necessarily call a reduction in growth a 'negative impact' \- just less of a
positive impact.

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jamesdutc
I live in NYC, and I've seen the tech community grow pretty quickly over the
past few years.

I run a meetup group - NYC Python:
[http://www.nycpython.com/](http://www.nycpython.com/) \- and the number of
events, attendees, companies, and conferences dedicated to just Python has
grown substantially since I started getting involved a few years back.

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HaloZero
Does anybody have a number on the San Francisco / Silicon Valley / Austin /
Seattle tech sectors in comparison?

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michaelochurch
I lived there for 7 years.

New York is a great place in general, but I wouldn't recommend its tech scene.
The Meetups are of high quality (in general) because there are so many people,
but most of the people at <Cool Technology X> meetups don't get to use X in
their day jobs.

The VC-funded startups are thick on quantity but dogshit (on average) for
quality. Most of the talented people move to finance (or leave NYC) after 30
because the startup scene is so awful: most of the founders are well-connected
wankbaskets, not real technologists.

~~~
chimeracoder
> The Meetups are of high quality (in general) because there are so many
> people, but most of the people at <Cool Technology X> meetups don't get to
> use X in their day jobs.

Clearly you had the misfortune of going to the wrong meetups. I haven't felt
that way about any of the Meetups I attend, except for _very_ obscure or
emerging technologies (such as Haskell or Go - which I think is true almost
everywhere).

> The VC-funded startups are thick on quantity but dogshit (on average) for
> quality. Most of the talented people move to finance (or leave NYC) after 30
> because the startup scene is so awful: most of the founders are well-
> connected wankbaskets, not real technologists.

I'm sorry you feel that way. That has not been my experience in the slightest.
Perhaps you were in NYC at the wrong time? Things have changed dramatically
(for the better) since 2009/2010 or so.

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JohnTHaller
I've been in NYC since 1996 and am looking to move to SF for the same reasons.
Tech here has always been about financial services and just doesn't gel with
the kind of startups you see in SF. I got tired of seeing demos of stuff that
had already been done (and better) on the other coast and tired of VCs that
just didn't understand software unless it was financial services-oriented.

Or am I missing something? I'd be happy to venture out again and give it a
shot.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Tech here has always been about financial services and just doesn't gel with
> the kind of startups you see in SF. I got tired of seeing demos of stuff
> that had already been done (and better) on the other coast

It sounds like you haven't seen the full extent of what the NYC tech community
has to offer, because I that view doesn't resonate with what I see at all.
I'll admit that discover-ability is a problem in any community in any city,
not just tech and not just in NYC (this is one problem that Meetup[0] aims to
solve).

If you're still in NYC, drop me a line (my email is easy to guess from my
username), and I'd be happy to get together in person and give you a map of
the New York tech community the way that I see it.

> VCs that just didn't understand software unless it was financial services-
> oriented.

Again, I think you've had the misfortune of meeting the wrong VCs. I'm an
engineer, but I used to work for a venture firm until very recently, and of
the ~40 companies in our portfolio, only one was financial in nature.

And, ironically, that one company is based on the West Coast!

The _only_ statement that I _might_ say about NYC startups versus west coast
ones is that NYC startups often seem to interact with the other industries we
have in NYC, instead of being "just" tech companies or B2C consumer
products[1]. But that's just a general feeling, with no hard data to back it
up. Certainly there's no dearth of either kind of startup[2] on either coast.

(There's also definitely some sampling bias there, because those types of
companies happened to be the investment focus of the company I worked for).

[0] which, incidentally, is an NYC startup that has nothing to do with
finance! [1] ie, [2] Tumblr and Mongodb are examples of successful "tech" and
B2C companies in NYC, for example, and there are plenty of industry-targeted
companies in SF too.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm giving it another shot with another meetup
and a couple more groups. And I dropped an email to what I guessed was yours.

