

NYC Should Bus In Hackers from Carnegie Mellon & MIT - MediaSquirrel
http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/08/what-id-do-if-i-was-charlie-odonnell.html

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novum
As a Carnegie Mellon alumnus, I can assure you that many (if not most)
CS/IS/MISM graduates already end up in NYC or San Francisco. Yours truly
included (hello from SF!)

DC, Pittsburgh, Baltimore are popular too, though much less so.

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loumf
If you need incentive to come to NYC, you aren't going to make it.

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brianmwang
I think there are plenty of incentives for hackers to come to NYC but it's
mainly from the finance sector. Wall St firms wining and dining their hire
prospects is common practice. Matt's recommendation is to show that the
startup community can entice hackers in its own way. Startups might not be
able to pay the salary + bonus that finance firms can throw at you, but
perhaps they can gain influence in other ways.

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krschultz
Salary isn't everything, the I-bank guys can be miserable. I know a guy who
just backed out of his offer from JP Morgan for less money at a smaller firm
that did something entirely. It is less money and the same hours, but the
project is more fun. Milage may vary but I know that for me +/- 10k is about
what I call equal offers.

I was just in a position picking between two offers. One paid about $8k more
than the other in salary, but the lower offer sounded more fun. I took the
lower offer. Promptly after my start date they told me about a bonus I'd be
getting that I didn't know about that comes to about 10k, so I ended up coming
out ahead, but even if that hadn't happened I'd be OK with my decision.

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adolph
Why buses? Are the trains not working today?

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brianmwang
Trains are a fair bit more expensive than buses. We don't want scrappy
startups sending mixed signals ;)

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moron4hire
I don't get the city competition, but maybe that's because I didn't grow up in
my city (Philadelphia) and I was never a recognized member of my previous
small-town community (for various reasons, none important). Who cares if your
city is the "Silicon Valley of the East Coast"? Suddenly that means tech isn't
going on in all the other East Coast cities? You show me even a _small town_
that _doesn't_ have at least 5 different tech companies.

Why does a particular city _need_ a "startup scene"? How is having NYC known
as a place that tech companies like to call home, versus tech companies just
going about their business without drawing attention to the fact that they are
in NYC because it doesn't mean anything to the 90% of their customers who
don't live there, going to do anything for NYC? Attract more businesses for
more tax revenue? Then why would the type of business matter at all?

Reversing that question, why does any startup _need_ a particular city? What
does it matter that DuckDuckGo is in Valley Forge, PA (even though everyone
says Philly, because Valley Forge is toootally inside Philadelphia city limits
when it's down the Turnpike past even King of Prussia. Might as well say New
Ark, DE is in Philly)? It's still a decent upstart search engine, and would be
the same decent site if it were in Bethesda, MD (where people would probably
say it was in DC).

If the price is right, you can find talent anywhere (cities don't have a
monopoly on growing smart people out of test tubes), and if the biz is right
you can find funding anywhere (or would an investor seriously give up a good
opportunity just because the company's HQ is more than a lunch-hour drive
away?). None of these things have particular geographical components, unless
you're in some dead-end, old, mining enclave on the side of a mountain in up-
state Pennsylvania. Or maybe not, maybe you got so good of a deal on land that
you don't mind the capital cost of getting started from stone-age-scratch.

But at any rate, it means nothing to me if, say, Orlando, FL has more tech
firms than Philly. That's them, not me. Where they are certainly has to have
no more impact on me than if they lived next door to me.

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maxawaytoolong
_Why does a particular city need a "startup scene"?_

As a startup employee, a practical reason to live somewhere with a "startup
scene" is so that I can get another job easily if something doesn't work out.
I don't want to have to move from Valley Forge to Orlando when DuckDuckGo
tanks.

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bnoordhuis
Shouldn't that be ' _if_ DuckDuckGo tanks'? Or do you know something I don't?
;-)

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toxicflavor
From where I'm standing NYC has no recognizable shortage of young technical
talent. Hackers from Carnegie Mellon & MIT don't need to be "bussed in"
because they're already drawn to NYC in droves, as are young people from all
areas of the country. The talent pool and the startup scene are both thriving.
The author believes he has the solution to a problem that I just don't
recognize as a significant one in NYC.

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MediaSquirrel
HAHAHA. Are you a startup founder? Have you ever tried to recruit a web hacker
for an early stage startup in NYC? Early stage companies are desperate for
talent.

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cageface
I'm on the West Coast looking for startup gigs in NYC and haven't seen that
many listed. Who needs people?

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krschultz
Check out startuply, union square venture's portfolio of companies, new york
tech meetup, and nextNY.

I asked the question you are asking on HN about 3 years ago, someone gave me
the answer above (thought startuply didn't exist at the time), and ended up at
a startup I wound up loving to work for not 2 months later, so good luck and
maybe the kharma will be passed on.

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cageface
Thanks very much for the pointers. Looks like a good start.

