

New York Startup Movement - spencerfry
http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2009/12/21/new-york-startup-movement/

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mikekarnj
Just to clarify, I did NOT write this post as a "East Coast versus West Coast"
thought-piece. I wanted to give a 50,000 feet view from what is happening in
New York City to document the momentum of the ecosystem that's being created
as we speak. I'm a huge supporter of entrepreneurship in every city, and this
is a model that should be shared and replicated in every community. If we take
what works in NYC, Boston, SF, Seattle, New Orleans, etc -- we just might be
able to get somewhere.

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Tawheed
I wonder how much of this has to do with the financial collapse. There is no
denying that the financial firms sucked up a ton of great talent during their
boom years. Are those people (and the potentials) now turning to startups now
that the finance firms are taking a breather with their high-salary and mind-
numbing jobs?

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mikekarnj
I think the financial collapse has a role in what's happening in New York
City. You're seeing a huge shift from people "thinking" about starting
something to "doing" it. When you see most of your friends getting laid off
from jobs, you realize nothing is guaranteed, so you might as well swing for
the fences. This has a ripple effect through the community.

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Tawheed
Yeah, thats what I'm thinking too. I think its so great, society as a whole
will fare better with these people swinging for the fences, instead of being
in a soulless job.

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mikekarnj
I agree. The financial collapse was the worst and best thing that could ever
happen.

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rafefurst
NYC is the most innovative place on the planet right now if you measure by new
value being created from scratch.

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nir
What are you basing this on?

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aditya
On how well the new hedge funds are doing, of course:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126135805328299533.html?mod=...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126135805328299533.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews)

IMHO Finance is far from dead in NYC and the recent startup activity is mostly
smoke from a small fire.

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mikekarnj
“Greenwich Village 60s … Venice Beach 70s … London 80s … Silicon Valley 90s …
Blogosphere 00s … NYC now…”

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falsestprophet
“ _Once every hundred years media changes._ the last hundred years have been
defined by the mass media. The way to advertise was to get into the mass media
and push out your content. That was the last hundred years. In the next
hundred years information won’t be just pushed out to people, it will be
shared among the millions of connections people have. Advertising will change.
You will need to get into these connections." - Mark Zuckerberg, 6/07

These guys need to tone down the mellowdrama. I'm sure their 10th grade
English teachers loved the parallel structure. But now that they are grown up,
they ought to add sound reasoning as well.

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wglb
But does NYC have the startup culture like the valley? Isn't more startup-like
tech in Boston than NYC?

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Tawheed
What is startup culture? Free sodas? Working 90-hour weeks and thinking you're
awesome? I guess I never really understood what people refer to as startup
culture and more importantly how it relates to geography, and I really want to
know.

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charlesju
1\. # of startups 2\. # of startup conferences 3\. # of VCs

I think Silicon Valley leads in all 3 of those categories?

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spencerfry
What about quality over quantity?

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gnosis
How do you measure that?

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whatusername
profit.

(Obviously that's rather hard to measure as an outsider of privately held
companies, but profit is surely the yardstick)

