
Head of StartUp NY leaving as jobs report is two months late - JumpCrisscross
http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/albany-politics/head-of-startup-ny-leaving-as-jobs-report-is-two-months-late-20160531
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jbob2000
"In the first full year of operation in 2014, however, 76 jobs were created
statewide.

At a cost of more than $40 million for advertising and marketing..."

~$500,000 to create a single job. It would be cheaper to straight up pay
someone $50,000 a year to sit and do nothing and you'd have created 800 jobs
instead.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Hey now! Easy there with that basic income talk! /s

Disclaimer: These are the sorts of problems we face as we come to terms that
its better to hand out cash directly then try to "create jobs".

EDIT: If $500K can't create a job for someone, what else is there? Why spend
that ( _or more_ ) when its cheaper to pay them directly as a cash transfer?

~~~
forgingahead
Job creation does not need to be enclosed in quotes as though it is a magical
concept -- it does happen, and we know how to make it happen. The problem in
this case was the assumption that throwing money at a problem, without knowing
how to accurately deploy it, would magically produce long-lasting jobs.

Just because another government handout/kickback scheme has failed doesn't
mean basic income is the right solution.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> it does happen, and we know how to make it happen.

I mean this entirely seriously with no sarcasm: enlighten me.

How do you create jobs when your economy is approaching steady state, your
population is on a decline glidescope, and technology is providing deflation
better and faster than a central bank can create inflation?

~~~
forgingahead
A job is created when there is an opportunity to make (more) money, and that
opportunity requires human labour beyond what can be provided by the person
who realizes that opportunity.

It fundamentally comes down to that dynamic. So to create jobs, you need to:

a) Increase potential for opportunities, or opportunities themselves.

b) Reduce costs for realizing those opportunities.

Notice the greed component (which is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism) --
there must be an incentive to make MORE money in order for this to kick off.

~~~
toomuchtodo
What if there is no opportunity for labor to make more money? Only to do
existing work with less people?

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1024core
Has such a top-down approach to attracting startups ever worked?

IMHO, startups are attracted to the right environment and capital (monetary
and talent). The government, therefore, needs to change its laws and create
the right environment.

For example: California's law that nullifies non-compete clauses. That alone
has been responsible for so many startups, as people left Fairchild to start
Intel, Intel to start AMD, Cisco, etc. and Cisco to start Juniper, and on and
on.

~~~
trsohmers
This is why I really don't think there will be another start up hub in the US
other than Silicon Valley, and to a lesser extent, Boston. Top schools attract
and breed top talent that start companies, which create new capital, and
invest that back into the community.

Also: AMD wasn't started by anyone at Intel, it was founded less than a year
after Intel by 8 employees of Fairchild.

~~~
morgante
> and to a lesser extent, Boston

NYC has a bigger startup ecosystem than Boston at this point.

~~~
meddlepal
In terms of software startups that is definitely true and easy to do because
NYC has several orders of magnitude more people than Boston. Boston owns the
healthcare and biotech startup sector though - it's basically SV East for
those industries.

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Animats
From the article: _" This is a program which provides very generous benefits
in exchange for real commitment to create new jobs. ... In the first full year
of operation in 2014, 76 jobs were created statewide. At a cost of more than
$40 million for advertising and marketing..."_

No wonder this was criticized by the state auditor.

State job-incentive creation programs are generally ineffective. CBS reported
that the typical Government expenditure per job is $475,000.[1] In many cases,
jobs are not created, just moved.

Amazon managed to get $2.3 million per job out of the State of Texas.

Tesla's "Gigafactory" opens soon. I'm looking forward to finding out the
actual employee count. I suspect it will be far smaller than the promotional
numbers.

[1] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/do-subsidies-and-tax-breaks-
real...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/do-subsidies-and-tax-breaks-really-help-
create-jobs/)

~~~
peterkshultz
In Nevada, Tesla projected more than 700 jobs by the end of 2015.

The state got 272.

[http://www.rgj.com/story/opinion/voices/2016/03/01/one-
view-...](http://www.rgj.com/story/opinion/voices/2016/03/01/one-view-nevadas-
gamble-tesla-not-economic-development/81161894/)

~~~
Animats
Yes, states seem to do incentives like that on a "trust me" basis. You'd think
they'd dispense the incentives after they got copies of the tax witholding
forms showing the wages of the employees in the newly created jobs, but no.

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mathattack
Seems strange to put a corporate real estate specialist with experience at
massive companies in charge of startups. 2 very different skillsets.

~~~
fapjacks
Yeah, totally. But that's not what governors think about when they make
appointments like that.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Yeah, totally. But that's not what governors think about when they make
> appointments like that.

No doubt Cuomo was focused 100% on how this would affect his 2016 and/or 2020
presidential run, not how it would affect the state of New York.

~~~
mathattack
She could have just as easily been a big donor. Just an appointment that
seemed destined to either benign neglect or failure.

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jonkiddy
The article lists 172 companies with 4000+ jobs promised over the next five
years. 76 jobs created in 2014.

The program's website [1] lists 157 companies and 4,278 new jobs. The missing
job report for 2015 is two months late.

[1] [http://startup.ny.gov/companies](http://startup.ny.gov/companies)

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vachi
waste of time and money

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gdltec
That's a shame.

