Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 367 posts

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#91

Post by cfallin »

beachstartup wrote: post #64
cfallin wrote: post #55

Pittsburgh has a lot going for it, and it's been really cool seeing the growth since I moved to Pgh in 2009. I think the one thing it might have against it is a growing anti-gentrification/tech movement. It's nothing like throw-rocks-at-busses San Francisco, but you do see things like this graffiti: http://imgur.com/5T0iJQ6 And it's not just the fringe with these views, but (in my experience) reasonable people who ar…

> I took for granted having parking and laundry and post-1950s wiring when I was on the west coast having lived in both sf and la, you really can't expect many rental places to have all 3 of these things (or even 2, really), except the newest developments. most buildings in both cities are cheap-ish mass housing built in the 40s-70s. the new stuff gets a lot of attention but is a tiny fraction of the city.

That's true... but I think it just depends on the market. I lived one year each in Mountain View and in Hillsboro, OR (a Portland suburb near Intel's campus), and while Mountain View was competitive, Hillsboro had oodles of nice, modern places ready right away. I ended up in modern (I'd still say average housing quality in both markets is much better than in Pittsburgh, at least in the neighborhoods near CMU (Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, etc). My current place was built in 1916, still has knob-and-tube wiring, and I considered it a good find. I'm moving to a 1950s building in August and I'm looking forward to having enough electrical capacity for a microwave.

All that said -- everyone should still consider moving here -- it's a beautiful city, with a lot of culture, and the housing market will eventually come to a better equilibrium!

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#92

Post by blackguardx »

spelunker wrote: post #82
davidw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boulder is a great place that has a lot going for it. It's also infested with NIMBY's that are possibly worse than those in the Bay Area. https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-b...

Oh it's a well-known problem in the area. Most recently, people in Boulder were upset with the fact that Google wanted to expand and add something like 4000 jobs. Heaven forbid a bunch of new tech jobs are added to your precious town, right?

I've lived in Boulder and San Francisco. Most people weren't upset, just a strong vocal minority. It is the same type of people that don't like tech jobs in San Francisco.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#93

Post by joeblau »

Cshelton wrote: post #80

Dallas: - Highest growth rate in the nation (especially for 18 - 30 years old), after Houston, which is down now due to the oil industry, placing Dallas at #1 - Highest spending on food and alcohol at restaurants - http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2015/09/dallas-fort-worth-... - One of the most affordable places to live in the U.S. - Large number of top tier universities within 3 hours (Univ of Texas, Baylor, TCU, S…

Yeah, but are people in Dallas truly open minded? I've never lived in Texas but from my understanding, Austin is the only place in Texas which really fosters an truly open thought process. Without that, it doesn't matter how many of the other elements a city has.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#94

Post by blackguardx »

davidw wrote: post #76
spelunker wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denver/Boulder fits most of that bill and already has a startup culture, sorta. Kansas City is nice too, and Google fiber being available is a huge plus. Obviously I'm biased since I've lived in both places.

Boulder is a great place that has a lot going for it. It's also infested with NIMBY's that are possibly worse than those in the Bay Area. https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-b...

People in Boulder don't attack buses like they do in San Francisco/Oakland.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#95

Post by delish »

Animats wrote: post #11

Uber is building a self-driving car research center in Pittsburgh. They hired most of the CMU self-driving car people. Supposedly they're going to renovate a railroad roundhouse in Hazelwood and use some of the empty space from the old coke plant for road testing. How's that working out? In California, anything you do on your own time belongs to you, and the previous employer can't enforce most non-compete agreements…

> In California, anything you do on your own time belongs to you, and the previous employer can't enforce most non-compete agreements.

I work in Pittsburgh, and recently learned that my employer can own intellectual property that I created on my own time in my home. I was appalled.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#96

Post by minimaxir »

50CNT wrote: post #87

I'm not sure whether YC is actually that great for startup hubs outside of SF. After all, the most ambitious founders seem likely to just go through YC and then stay in SF because all the other ambitious founders have stayed in SF, the VCs are there, the talent is there. Yes, they could head back to Pittsburgh, but that's 2 moves for a fledgeling startup, and they have little to gain from the second. It kinda reminds…

A class project from a CMU class, PayTango, ended up becoming a YC S13 startup: http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/society/2013/spring/fingertip-co...

What happened afterwards? Everyone moves to SV for YC, then 3/4 of the founders went to Google.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#97

Post by [deleted] »

davidw wrote: post #85
spelunker wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it's a well-known problem in the area. Most recently, people in Boulder were upset with the fact that Google wanted to expand and add something like 4000 jobs. Heaven forbid a bunch of new tech jobs are added to your precious town, right?

I'm not a big fan of the 'privilege' stuff, but "too many good jobs" smacks of someone who's completely disconnected from the reality of a great many people in the world. Especially since I was living in Italy, with a 40% youth unemployment rate, at the time I wrote the above article. "Move to Greece if you want to experience the pleasure of a place without so many of those darn jobs!" is what I can't help but thinki…

[deleted]

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#98

Post by p4wnc6 »

I live in the Midwest and would be happy to continue living here. Pittsburgh would in many ways be ideal.

But if start-ups flock to Pittsburgh and start engaging in cargo-cult replication of the idiotic open-plan madness of SV, poor wages relative to cost of living, poor employment culture that places importance on inane things like how much alcohol you consume, then count me out.

I frankly don't understand why a region would want to become like Silicon Valley.

Don't get me wrong. I understand why unrealistic founders would want it and I understand why exploitative VC firms might want it. But why would employees or residents want it? It will only accelerate wealth concentration, establish monoculture, lead to absurd corporate corruption, gentrification issues, and on and on.

Quick, Pittsburgh. Stop this before your local politicians have completely sold you out!

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#99

Post by wklauss »

saosebastiao wrote: post #54
wklauss wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is the actual evidence that strict historical preservation actually matters? In all the historic places you visit and that, in some parts of the world, add up to a significant amount GDP thanks to tourism or related activities. There are some intangible values as well as they help shape the history and evolve a community around specific places (think West Village, Manhattan for example). I know it can be frus…

> In all the historic places you visit and that, in some parts of the world, add up to a significant amount GDP thanks to tourism or related activities. How did ancient Rome ever survive to the extent that it exists today if they didn't have historical preservation statutes? It has a lot more to do with protecting their buildings from angry invaders than it does with protecting their buildings from developers. In rea…

> It has a lot more to do with protecting their buildings from angry invaders

Well, time changes. We no longer face the threats of the barbarian hordes of northern Europe but we have modern day speculators that will torn down anything for a profit and not think long term.

And again with the culturally valuable. What is valuable today might not be years from now or viceversa, that's why deciding what should be protected usually requires quite a lengthy process.

> Can you imagine not having Independence Hall today because historic preservation statutes decided to preserve all the historic Chestnut Street homes that were torn down for it?

Or having it two blocks up from the current location? But listen, I'm not arguing that everything should be preserved for ever. And I don't know any preservation society that thinks in those terms. What I'm saying is that deciding what gets preserved and what does not is a tough call and a very complex issue.

You asked where's the evidence that historic preservation, as a whole, matters. I'd argue its pretty evident. Yes you are right when you point out that the system can be abused but that doesn't diminish the importance of building preservation initiatives, specially in country that has a short history.

Also, no such thing as survivor bias when applied to hypotheticals, for obvious reasons.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#100

Post by tryitnow »

Hmmm. Does he even reference the fact that the SF Bay Area was the recipient of massive amounts of government and government contractor money?

And what about the free-wheeling, non-traditional culture (embodied in the Homebrew Computing Club)?

These two factors created Silicon Valley. Federal money subsidized the semiconductor boom, which brought a lot of technical expertise to the area. Then the open-minded culture created the perfect environment for entrepreneurship.

It seems like the formula for success is: (1) Massive exogenous funding (on scale only the federal government can do) + (2) A highly open-minded culture that accepts failure as an inevitable part of creation.

Honestly, there's just not a lot of places that qualify. Pretty much all of the east coast, mid-west, and south are too conservative. And nowhere is really receiving massive loads of external funding like the Bay Area did in the 20th century.

Post reply on HN