

How Big Is Chicago's Startup Scene? About SOMA-Sized, Actually - garbowza
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/how-big-is-chicagos-startup-scene-about-soma-sized-actually/262467/

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spuiszis
Long time reader and first time poster. As a Chicagoan and a huge fan of S.F.,
this pissed me off because of the pure lack of journalistic integrity (and
logic for that matter) when putting this article together. The Chicago startup
scene pales in comparison to San Francisco, everyone knows that. There is no
need to go through some ridiculous and poorly executed comparison to prove it.
My comment to his post on the Atlantic (edited for grammar):

That is hardly representative of both Chicago and San Francisco's startup
scene. I am not sure which is more shocking to me, the fact that you are
posting this on the Atlantic (an extremely well respected publication) or the
fact that an editor approved this.

A. The San Francisco map doesn't even include Menlo Park, Mountain View, etc.
The San Francisco startup scene is even larger than you depict. B. You don't
list the San Francisco startups as you with the Chicago map. C. You just
Googled the locations of a few well known Chicago startups and just plopped
them on the map. Simply taking a few minutes to search you might have found
1871, a startup incubator located in Chicago's Merchandise Mart that is the
home to several HUNDRED startups. <http://www.1871.com/about/> D. The scale on
the maps are not comparable. E. This is simply unintelligent and a perfect
example of the poor journalism we see today.

In Short: Thank you for wasting five minutes of my life with your last minute-
deadline submission that contributes zero value to society.

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jrockway
Why so much anger?

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spuiszis
Not anger, frustration mixed in with a very long day.

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wtn
Starting a company in either of those geographic areas (Loop/River North or
SOMA) is like shoveling cash into an incinerator.

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rayiner
Relative to where? The most expensive office space in the Loop (along Wacker
Drive) runs just under $40/sq-ft/year. Palo Alto averages $55+ over the whole
market (not just the choicest area). Mountain View is a more reasonable $32.

[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-08/business/ct-
bi...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-08/business/ct-
biz-0908-expensive-streets-20110908_1_office-space-jones-lang-lasalle-average-
rent)

[http://kiddermathews.com/downloads/research/office-market-
re...](http://kiddermathews.com/downloads/research/office-market-research-
silicon-valley-2011-1q.pdf)

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brandnewlow
The best comparison I've seen was a graphic that showed how much VC capital
had been invested in various U.S. markets into tech companies in 2009. I seem
to remember SF/Bay was in the $10-12b range, NYC was second in the $4-5b
range. Then Boston at $3-4b, and Chicago at $3b or so....with about 45% of
that being one company, Groupon.

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dougsharp
Just for laughs I'd like to see a comparison consisting of one measure:
average time elapsed between entering a coffee shop and hearing the words
"startup," "iterate," "pivot," or "code/coding/ruby/rails" :)

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Evbn
Like the Economists Big Mac index for purchasing power parity, the Latte Index
for startups: how many startups are sitting in an average Starbucks.

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lquist
Hmm.. I don't know that geographic size tells us anything important. Am I
missing something here?

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zafriedman
I don't even think that was the point. I think the geographic comparison is
more a novelty than anything, and I don't even think the author takes a
viewpoint in writing his article. I clicked the link because I'm at an
Excelerate Labs company now in Chicago, and I'm sure other Chicago Hacker
News-ers will click on the link too, but I don't think there was really any
point to the article. So un-succinctly put, I don't think you're missing
anything.

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jser
Guilty -- saw Chicago in the headline, had to click.

~~~
sterling312
yep

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swang
Seems like the guy who wrote this "article" is in Chicago viewing startups
there and ran out of ideas to write about.

Or as others have pointed out, people will click on links with their current
city mentioned. I am sure it would have evoked the same reaction from people
in LA if they overlaid Santa Monica/Venice Beach over SOMA.

