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

121–130 of 367 posts

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#121

Post by samsolomon »

Yhippa wrote: post #88
forrestthewoods wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you didn't have to attract the "most" 18 to 30 year olds? What if what you really needed was to attract an underserved niche of 18 to 30 year olds? I think Atlanta or Nashville is ripe. Northeasterners can and do move to California already. Southerners are much less likely to do so imo. The rural market is grossly underserved right now. Almost none of the efforts to get people into computer science are hittin…

Either of these cities socially liberal? Hard to tell based on my visits there.

If you live in the City of Atlanta, it is quite liberal. The metro area is much more of a mixed bag.

Beyond the metro area, the rest of Georgia isn't at all.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#122

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

throwaway3724 wrote: post #109
joeblau wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, you sure sound open minded. If by open minded we mean writing off 26 million people because they live in a geographical area that's different than yours (and perhaps hold religious views, "quelle horreur!"). But what you really mean by "open minded" is "votes for Democratic politicians". And lucky for you, Dallas (just like all of those other bastions of conservativism, San Antonio and Houston) has a mayor who…

The horror is when such people use their biased views to impose un-American legislation to strip rights and freedoms from other people because it satisfies their fear of anyone who thinks differently than themselves. Texas has an established track record in this domain.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#123

Post by outworlder »

> What does that have to do with startups? Because startups are made of people, and the average age of the people in a typical startup is right in that 25 to 29 bracket.

So Paul Graham is now helping to perpetuate the current Silicon Valley ageism.

How useful is that data point? That bracket could be the current average of SV's founders, due to forces in action at that region. Another region could have an entirely different age bracket.

And that's founders. As the article touches upon, there won't be many investors. And certainly not at that age.

What you actually need to do is to get bright people to go to a region and stay there. If you just try to optimize for that age bracket, you won't have Silicon Valley.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#124

Post by Cshelton »

throwaway3724 wrote: post #109
joeblau wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, you sure sound open minded. If by open minded we mean writing off 26 million people because they live in a geographical area that's different than yours (and perhaps hold religious views, "quelle horreur!"). But what you really mean by "open minded" is "votes for Democratic politicians". And lucky for you, Dallas (just like all of those other bastions of conservativism, San Antonio and Houston) has a mayor who…

To be fair, he said he hasn't been to Texas, implying he is not familiar with it, and was only asking a question. He wasn't throwing out stereotypes as truth, just fro what he has heard.

I mean..if you ask half the people in Europe they still think we ride horses everywhere...

I've actually lived in Boulder, CO. and I think Austin is more "hippy" than Boulder...I know...crazy but that was my experience. I'd say Dallas is pretty well balanced as far as number of republicans/democrats.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#125

Post by forrestthewoods »

Yhippa wrote: post #88
forrestthewoods wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you didn't have to attract the "most" 18 to 30 year olds? What if what you really needed was to attract an underserved niche of 18 to 30 year olds? I think Atlanta or Nashville is ripe. Northeasterners can and do move to California already. Southerners are much less likely to do so imo. The rural market is grossly underserved right now. Almost none of the efforts to get people into computer science are hittin…

Either of these cities socially liberal? Hard to tell based on my visits there.

Less liberal than the coasts. More liberal than their surrounding rural neighbors.

We talk about how women make up 50% of the population and if we don't hire women then we're leaving a lot of talent on the table. Well 50% of the country is conservative and if we don't hire conservatives we're also leaving a lot of talent on the table.

Conservatives are people too. Many who are incredibly smart, talented, and hard working. They shouldn't be overlooked.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#126

Post by ghaff »

atspruce wrote: post #106
cfallin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a PhD student at CMU right now. We just went from 75-degree "wow, we skipped spring" weather a few weekends ago to snow last weekend. Who knows what next week will bring. Keeps things interesting as long as you remain indoors!

There's plenty to complain about regarding Pittsburgh's gray, gray weather, but this up-and-down spring is wildly atypical for the area and not localized to southwestern PA. The same thing is happening in Ohio, across the rest of Pennsylvania, through New Jersey, and into the NYC area - and I'm sure in neighboring states as well.

This has just been a bizarre year. In New England, I swear someone mixed up the March and April buttons. March is usually crazy (but was pretty nice this year) and we're getting snow and gold grey days in April.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#127

Post by eropple »

joeblau wrote: post #93
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.

This is speculation, but like most parts of the U.S., I'd suggest that maybe it's more an urban/rural split than anything else. Texas has its pockets of reasonableness and progressivism (and outside of Austin, too--I quite like San Antonio, Dallas is fine, and while Houston is best described as a highway in a swamp a million lanes wide that you merge across to get anywhere, it's a very tolerant community with a gay woman as mayor from 2010 to 2016, when she was term-limited). When you get out of where the money and the people is, it may be different (never been), but the urban areas aren't much different from any other urban area in that regard.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#128

Post by Xcelerate »

abalashov wrote: post #102
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…

Yes, but Dallas fails abysmally on the urban livability and density test. It's one giant exurb. Much of it should be reclassified as a rural area. (Speaking as an Atlantan -- we have the exact same problem.)

Atlanta — a massive metro region with the emptiest downtown area I've ever lived in. It's a bit of a paradox.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#130

Post by throwaway3724 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #122
throwaway3724 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you sure sound open minded. If by open minded we mean writing off 26 million people because they live in a geographical area that's different than yours (and perhaps hold religious views, "quelle horreur!"). But what you really mean by "open minded" is "votes for Democratic politicians". And lucky for you, Dallas (just like all of those other bastions of conservativism, San Antonio and Houston) has a mayor who…

The horror is when such people use their biased views to impose un-American legislation to strip rights and freedoms from other people because it satisfies their fear of anyone who thinks differently than themselves. Texas has an established track record in this domain.

Remind me when the good people of Dallas stripped the rights and freedoms of any people, besides banning fracking in 2013?

For god's sake, they passed a law prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity/sexual orientation in 2002. That's 10 years before Barack Obama realized that same-sex marriage was a fundamental American right.

Post reply on HN