
Sorry, Chicago but Peter Thiel Is Mostly Right - barry-cotter
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160919/OPINION/160919839/peter-thiel-comments-on-chicago-are-on-the-mark-aaron-renn?X-IgnoreUserAgent=1
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badmadrad
I moved from DC to Chicago and I love it here. I don't know where Thiel is
getting his data but there are a lot of talented ambitious people in Chicago
doing amazing things. To me going to New York or Silicon Valley is akin to the
goldrush. Their is a lot of competition, nowhere to live, and lots of sheisty
people that want to rob you or make you work for free for them. Thanks but no
thanks.

Chicago has contributed immensely to the tech world. For example, Ruby on
Rails was built by engineers from Chicago based company. And I know for fact
there are a lot of rails apps powering Silicon Valley and NY.

I guess my point is that there are smart engineers everywhere and its more up
to your own individual drive how far you go. Good thing about Chicago is
that's it cleaner and cheaper than San Fran or NY so I'll take my chances.

~~~
blazespin
San Francisco is a pit, go south into the Bay Area. Much Better.

I pick my locales by homicide rates. Chicago and Sf both suck.

~~~
CalChris
San Francisco was 45 homicides per 100,000 for 2014. San Jose was 32.

Kansas City was 78. Denver was 31. Dallas was 116. These were picked kinda
randomly.

~~~
ohhnoodont
I think you're reading your numbers wrong - San Francisco had 5.3 murders per
100,000 people in 2014 (45 in _total_ [1]).

[1] [http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-
Californi...](http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-
California.html)

~~~
CalChris
Doh. Thank you.

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tptacek
Approximately the mish-mash of status-seeking claims you'd expect from someone
who includes in the text of their essay that they were "simply smarter than
most people in college" and "even at Accenture I basically just had more
horsepower to throw at problems than most", while in NYC they're "constantly
around people who are at least as smart as I am, _if not smarter._ " [em:
mine].

One gets the sense that had they moved to Toledo, instead of reading about
Zuckerberg we'd be reading about the vital importance of Works Progress
Administration architecture.

Influence in industry and culture doesn't scale linearly with city population.
That's a banal observation. But not a single HTML tag can be left unspent in
the quest to generate the thinkiest think-piece pretending instead that the
observation is clever or far-reaching.

~~~
rayiner
He's a consultant. It's a profession where measuring a city by HYPS grads per
square mile doesn't seem weird.

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joezydeco
Chicago (and the surrounding area up to Milwaukee) has a long history in
manufacturing and machining, and I think we're squandering that advantage.
That, or the expertise has been laid off and/or evaporated and it's just not
available any more.

The academic environment literally has no idea how to integrate with this
community, especially UIllinois. That comes with a bit of a bias - I'm an
alumnus - and I honestly feel UI, especially Champaign/Urbana, is a basket
case when it comes to outreach with industry. Or ask pmarca if you don't want
to believe me.

~~~
WillEngler
I take Uptake (Chicago industrial IoT unicorn,
[http://uptake.com/](http://uptake.com/)) as a positive case of Chicago's tech
scene embracing the area's manufacturing strengths.

~~~
joezydeco
I'm heavy in IoT projects and I'm wary of Uptake. Can't put my finger on it -
maybe it's the extremely high sizzle-to-steak ratio. Or maybe just because I
see everyone scammed by Groupon falling for it all over again.

I see groups like 640/Climate putting their shoulders into it and doing heavy
work. I look at Uptake and see a floor of marketing reps.

------
tuna-piano
As a Chicago resident, my first reaction is to rebel against this.

Why do they call out Harvard-Princeton-Yale, when US News ranks University of
Chicago higher than Yale(1). The Chicago area has 2 schools in the top twenty,
I only count one in NYC and one in the bay area. And I see many other top 20
schools in "flyover country". Coasts have no monopoly on world-class academia.

How bout fortune 500 company headquarters? San Fransisco gets the prestige of
tying with Milwaukee and Cincinnati in 6th, while Chicago is 5th and Houston
is 2nd (to NYC at first).

Facebook may be the largest social network in the world, and that's great for
San Fransisco. But that doesn't give them a monopoly on talent. We have tons
of impact here too, for example the biggest restaurant chain in the world
(McDonald's) is headquartered in metro-Chicago. If you want to see power in
the restaurant space, that's where to look (sorry if it's not sexy enough for
you).

Chicago's GDP is 50% greater than San Fransisco's (3).

O'hare airport has 50% more flights than San Fransisco, and 10% more
international travelers(4). Why does the less global city have more
international travelers?

So in summary: we have better educational institutions, more large companies,
a higher GDP, and are more physically connected to the world than San Fran.
Just because we're not the cool kid on the block doesn't mean we aren't as
powerful as you San Fran.

That all said, idk, they might be right. The people I hear about on TV do tend
to be on the coasts, and a lot of the super succesful people do seem to end up
working on a coast eventually.

(1)[http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-
colleges/...](http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-
colleges/rankings/national-universities)
(2)[http://www.metroatlantachamber.com/docs/default-
source/resou...](http://www.metroatlantachamber.com/docs/default-
source/resources/2014-fortune-headquarters.pdf?sfvrsn=4)
(3)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP)
(4)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_pa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic#2015_statistics)

------
recursive
Talent is different from ambition. He was talking about ambition, not talent.
You can have neither, either, or both.

~~~
betenoire
Yes. A talented person does not necessarily feel compelled to achieve maximum
career success.

~~~
smrtinsert
there are plenty of people in si who dont have dick to show for their years
there (other than real estate nowhere near their place of work)

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_RPM
I'm from Chicago suburbs, but worked in the city this summer. I agree 100%
with Thiel. I'm trying _very_ hard to not have to work in the city when I
graduate in December. I believe the passion just isn't here from the small
sample of software engineers that I interacted with. I might be extremely
naive to say that. I think evidence would support my theory such as there not
being very many interesting startups in Chicago. Only a select few that I've
heard of that I would want to work at. Chicago seems to be dominated by
Finance.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Startups are hobbies in Chicago. Leave or work remotely if you want to work
for one.

Source: I lived in Chicago most my life, and worked for two startups there. I
now work for a Bay Area startup remotely.

~~~
brianwawok
Sounds about like my life path.

Agree that startup scene in Chicago isn't that awesome. I mean groupon back in
the day realllly wanted to talk to me, but the business model wasn't so great.

The cool tech that I found in Chicago was finance.. the finance scene was
pretty cool... but maybe not the ideal industry to spend your life in.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> The cool tech that I found in Chicago was finance.. the finance scene was
> pretty cool... but maybe not the ideal industry to spend your life in.

Definitely. The cool fintech in Chicago (not traditional fintech mind you)
were the HFT/prop trading shops. Tech skills needed, with I-banking work
environment provided (think seedy sort of things transpiring).

~~~
brianwawok
Well CME was cool in a few teams (heya match engine team).

------
bjacokes
It's hard to have a reasoned discussion about cities because there's so much
ego tied up in your decision of where to live. People don't want to feel like
they've made the wrong decision, so they'll say bad things about other cities
to rationalize their choice.

I moved to SF from Chicago about five years ago, and on the whole it's been an
improvement for me. The comp increase more than made up for the cost of living
difference, I have a stronger network of classmates from college, and there
are more job opportunities. Certainly if you want to quickly grow a tech
company to 100+ people, it will be much easier here than in Chicago. Outside
of work, there are many outdoors activities (cycling, hiking, surfing) that
aren't easy to access in Chicago. There's no snow and no suffocating summer.
There's plenty to be cynical about, but that's true in any big city.

What I miss about Chicago is knowing people with a more diverse set of
professions, being closer to family on the east coast, and having a more
moderately-priced restaurant and bar scene. Things generally feel more relaxed
in Chicago because the cost of living is lower. A downside is that Chicago
tends to draw mostly Midwesterners, so as an east-coaster I actually know far
more people in Seattle and SF than I did in Chicago (if you're from Iowa,
Wisconsin, etc, then you'll probably find the opposite to be true).

I have a tendency to get enamored with cities I visit, or miss cities that I
used to live in, so my trick is to try and spend time doing things that are
specific to where I live. After moving to SF I started hiking and visiting
wineries and eating Mexican food. If I moved back to Chicago I might start
jogging on the lakefront again, or going to more improv shows and brewpubs. At
any rate, it's a bit more enjoyable of a way to feel like you've made the
right choice on where to live than bad-mouthing other cities.

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mathattack
I think a lot of folks are misreading the author. The author isn't saying that
people in Chicago are dumb. He's saying that talented people who move for
ambition are moving primarily to New York and SF, and this is causing
concentrations of intelligent and ambitious people to reside there.

~~~
tptacek
Is he? Did I misread the section about how he was smarter than most people at
Indiana University, and only now that he's arrived amongst his kind in NYC
does he feel himself adequately matched by his peers?

Wait, I forgot, he's an admirer of Thiel's. Maybe it was just an aside about
the pointlessness and futility of college.

~~~
idlewords
Maybe if you didn't live in Chicago, you could figure this out!

~~~
tptacek
When software development is automated away and developers go the way of
Milwaukee's tool and die engineers and everyone moves back to the Great Lakes
region to get access to our vast reserves of fresh water, I'm really going to
lord threads like these over them.

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rplst8
I think this is largely just "location, location, location." For some reason
there is this innate draw to major population centers of a certain "type" and
it's forms a self reinforcing feedback loop. I think the term for it is
network effect.

What I think is silly is people fall for it every time. Do a large number of
successful startups come out of SF and NYC? Yes. Does everyone who moves there
get to participate in one? No.

Even if you are a super-genius, with good looks, a good sales pitch, and ooze
charisma, you still may not make it.

Yes, ambitious people go to these tech "Meccas" but I don't think it really
increases any one individual person's chance of making it big.

I think the saddest part of it all, is even whilst living in the most
connected age that has ever existed, we still find location so important.

~~~
gorkemyurt
"Yes, ambitious people go to these tech "Meccas" but I don't think it really
increases any one individual person's chance of making it big."

How can this be true if you admit a large number of startups come out SF or
NYC?

~~~
thaumasiotes
I don't understand your question. Imagine 70% of entrepreneurs head to SF or
NYC because they've heard that that's what you do. Further imagine location
has no influence on anyone's chances of success.

By construction, 70% of successes come out of SF or NYC despite the fact that
being in SF or NYC is unhelpful. Large number in -> large number out. "A large
number of startups come out of SF or NYC" is guaranteed by the premise you're
questioning, "ambitious people go to these tech 'Meccas'". It's about as far
from a contradiction as you can get.

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hharnisch
The Chicago tech scene is simply smaller than the Valley and New York scenes.
Theres plenty of pockets of talent and ambition.

------
rayiner
Thiel's point is interesting when juxtaposed against the fact that the vast
majority of population growth in the US is happening outside New York and San
Francisco. New York grew 5% from 2010-2015. Atlanta grew 10%. Austin grew 18%.

If there is an increasing concentration of big thinkers in New York and San
Francisco, then what you're really seeing is a geographic stratification of
the country. The elite are moving from the population growth areas and
consolidating where the other elite already live.

~~~
latch
juxtaposed

~~~
rayiner
iOS will aggressively auto-correct wufe to wide,[1] but somehow didn't catch
that.

[1] Autocorrect should never insert "wide" as a replacement--for any letter
sequence--in a message to your wife.

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zpallin
Can this article please stop conflating San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

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_jeb_
I think San Francisco is used here as a synecdoche for the Bay Area at large.

~~~
zpallin
It shouldn't. People need to realize that, geographically, San Francisco is
not a valley.

Not only that, but most of the tech companies in SF that are known for being
in SF are selling web services and apps, not computers and hardware.

The term Silicon Valley comes from the South Bay region where there are a
number of enormous hardware and computing companies.

SF should be called "App Hills". That would actually make sense.

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designium
I wonder what he would say about Toronto.

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FreedomToCreate
Toronto is much different from Chicago in respect to the technology scene.
Being Canada's biggest, and primary city for tech, there is a lot of passion
and motivation to make concentrated in the community their. And the University
of Waterloo is a mere hour drive away from Toronto and has been a major feeder
school to tech companies for ages now. I visited Toronto for a hackathon in
April and was amazed by the amount of companies in the area as well as the
organizations that supports technology. Can't say the same about Chicago.

~~~
gorkemyurt
But Thiel doesn't really target tech workers, he makes a more general
observation, and its also valid for Toronto. If are smart and ambitious enough
you shouldn't stay in Toronto.

~~~
segmondy
This is ridiculous. If you're Canadian and are smart and ambitious enough, you
would move to Toronto.

~~~
aianus
Pretty much my entire graduating class in Canada moved to the US immediately
upon graduation.

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bksenior
LA is on on point with New York as well for tech opportunity.

~~~
1812Overture
From what I've seen (I live in LA) it's much more driven by Silicon Valley
companies opening up offices down here than by locally originated start-ups,
though there are of course many exceptions.

~~~
aianus
Which ones have offices in LA? Do you recommend any of them? I'm looking to
move down there myself.

I know Google and Amazon do but LinkedIn, Uber, Square, and Facebook don't.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
Snapchat is headquartered in LA. Microsoft, Oracle, Netflix, and Symantec also
have large offices. Riot, Activision, SpaceX, Dollar Shave Club, EA, Hulu,
True car, Buzzfeed, Telesign, Spokeo, Tinder, eHarmony, and MAXCDN are the
major tech companies in LA that I can think of off the top of my head

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j1vms
> If you are someone who is dreaming big—really big—it helps to be in an
> environment where other people are dreaming big.

And you would think that if you were dreaming big, it would be better to be in
an environment with people who know how to make big dreams come true.

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donohoe
Its not whether he is right or wrong, it was incredibly rude and poor form.

------
WillEngler
Thiel prides himself on iconoclasm. He really likes to ask people, "What
important truth do very few people agree with you on?" For that reason I'm
surprised about his attitude towards Chicago, and the non NYC/SF USA at large.
I think there's a lot to be gained by shrugging off the accepted wisdom that
anything of ambition must be done in these two places and embracing the unique
opportunities in a great city like Chicago, Columbus, Nashville, Pittsburgh,
etc..

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wglb
Wacky metric.

I am thinking of creating a metric that somehow computes the magnitude of
skill of self-congratulation of residents as a way of ranking cities.

Or how about a metric of published authors per capita. Pondera County Montana
would actually rank pretty high.

------
davidcaseria
While I agree with Thiel on a lot of areas, I think he underestimates the
power individuals to be more ambitious despite the norms of the local
population.

I work for a startup, M1 Finance
([https://www.m1finance.com/](https://www.m1finance.com/)), based in Chicago
which I believe to be an extremely ambitious team:
[http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2016/09/09/a-chicago-
fintec...](http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2016/09/09/a-chicago-fintech-
startup-comes-out-of-stealth-with-9m/).

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sunstone
Right...of center? Is that the context? Probably right.

------
musha68k
Chicago reminds me of Frankfurt - lots of skyscrapers but very boring. Chicago
is also pretty much the murder capital of the US if I'm not mistaken.

~~~
__derek__
Have you been to Chicago? If so, have you been outside of the Loop?

~~~
musha68k
I just came back from a trip there yesterday (opportunity to visit after a
great Strange Loop in St Louis) and I've been walking through downtown-ish
areas most of the time - from the lake to union park in the west.

People I met were nice and all but also felt conservative/boring (not many
flashy people on the streets) - I didn't find any interesting meetups when I
was there either.

I'm a huge Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller's Day Off fan so I was doubly
disappointed :(

I'd be happy to learn that I just did it the wrong way / had bad luck and all
the cool folks are somewhere else.

~~~
__derek__
I wanted to put your comment in context. On the area, downtown is not
particularly interesting. There are more charismatic areas radiating out from
there. You're onto something with the lack of flash. It's a Midwestern city,
so that kind of goes with the territory. That said, I'd argue that that's part
of what constitutes Chicago's appeal: it has many of the amenities of New York
(great food, culture, and architecture as well as reasonably good nightlife)
with less conceit and more Midwestern nice.

As for the murder concern, other commenters (tptacek in particular) covered
that.

~~~
musha68k
Thanks for sharing your perspective, I'll probably come back some day and I
will try to think of what you wrote here then :)

Regarding the "murder concern" it was more like being seriously disturbed by
it.

The downtown area seemed safe enough for me to stroll around also during night
time but waking up to a news reporter somewhat happily announcing that the
doctors saved the baby whose pregnant mother just became victim to a drive-by
shooting in south Chicago the evening before is just.. I don't know, fucked-up
shit like that doesn't happen (often? ever?) where I'm coming from. All in all
there where 5 dead and 43 injured over that weekend alone. So that clearly
played a role in my remarks regarding Chicago and my feelings towards staying
there.

~~~
__derek__
That's true. I didn't intend to be dismissive. Chicago does have a serious
issue with violence.

I hope you do get another chance to visit. I haven't gone there in a few
years, but I have good memories of the city.

