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

141–150 of 367 posts

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#141

Post by eropple »

wklauss wrote: post #77
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

Im convinced that the next valley will happen in the place that can attract the most unmarried people ages 18 through 30. What do these people care about? - night life - high density urban living - progressive local governments and freedom (drug and marriage decriminalization). - good public transportation - access to high speed internet - good universities As they grow older and get married, affordable and high spee…

I'm not sure where do you get the idea that people aging 18-30 care about those specific things. I assume Pew will have some statistics about interests and priorities for these ages but I wouldn't be surprised if those are not the main worries of the generation. Yes, urban living is on the rise and with it some of these list item will rise too (density, night life, high speed internet, public transportation...) but t…

> The "next valley" will be highly decentralized and a lot of big cities will act as innovation hubs.

I would like it if you were right, but I think you are discounting the critical factor of being able to be face-to-face with somebody. I live and work in Boston, and while it's not SF, I am within a forty-five minute public transit ride of most of my clients and almost everybody from whom I could conceive of needing a favor or an intro. Meeting a potential investor at a coffee shop because they had a few minutes and you happened to be in the area is the sort of thing you don't get with distributed communities, and as much as the I find the Valley to be personally kind of odious, that's an unmistakable advantage.

And this is a problem that technology, hype to the contrary, doesn't seem ready or able to fix. Video chat is not a solution. It may never be a solution. Being able to sit down and talk to somebody is not replaced by talking at a screen (and while I love the current crop of VR tech, I think it will be as effective as Second Life in terms of meaningful telepresence).

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#142

Post by forrestthewoods »

L_Rahman wrote: post #132
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…

To everyone proposing places like Nashville and Dallas - do you have any idea what it's like being a not-white person outside of the major coastal cities? It's a miserable experience. You go from seeing a lot of people who look like you in the industry of your choice, to being one of a token few. Food and grocery options go from omnipresent to something you have to hunt down. The way you lead your life goes from some…

Nashville is less white than Seattle. And Seattle seems to be doing pretty well.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#143

Post by krschultz »

Cshelton wrote: post #134
paulsutter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dallas misses on a few of pg's key points: it's a sprawling driving city, lack of a top university, and a red state culture. > Pittsburgh is fortunate in being a pre-car city. It's not too spread out. Because those 25 to 29 year olds do not like driving. They prefer walking, or bicycling, or taking public transport... Cities where you can get around without driving are just better period. > Pittsburgh has something P…

I wouldn't associate "red state culture" and a particular city in that state together. Remember, Austin is a city in Texas.... The 4 major cities in Texas in fact are either well mixed or liberal (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio). I hardly move my car on the weekends, get around just fine. My current job I have to commute by car (actually I could ride the train technically...), but many people walk/use public tr…

That last fact is a negative. You maximize track miles by having sprawl connected with trains. That's not what you want. Number of riders per mile of track is a much better metric.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#144

Post by Apocryphon »

L_Rahman wrote: post #132
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…

To everyone proposing places like Nashville and Dallas - do you have any idea what it's like being a not-white person outside of the major coastal cities? It's a miserable experience. You go from seeing a lot of people who look like you in the industry of your choice, to being one of a token few. Food and grocery options go from omnipresent to something you have to hunt down. The way you lead your life goes from some…

That's definitely an important consideration. From what I've heard, Raleigh-Durham RTP actually has had a huge influx of immigrant engineers, and so is more diverse than one would expect from the South.

Shame about their recent legislative decisions, though.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#146

Post by Xcelerate »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

Im convinced that the next valley will happen in the place that can attract the most unmarried people ages 18 through 30. What do these people care about? - night life - high density urban living - progressive local governments and freedom (drug and marriage decriminalization). - good public transportation - access to high speed internet - good universities As they grow older and get married, affordable and high spee…

Well, you've described the items on my dream list perfectly, but it's quite the antithesis of my girlfriend's list. Her list includes:

- calm, peaceful nights

- suburban house with a yard and a dog

- a comfortable car and well-kept roads

- internet good enough to stream Netflix

- quality local universities that offer tuition scholarships

Unmarried 18-30 year olds are quite a diverse bunch.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#147

Post by zanny »

eropple wrote: post #133
abalashov wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

I think you've nailed it with regards to Atlanta--I quite like Atlanta and have a lot of friends there (when DragonCon rolls around I stay an extra 3-4 days on each side of it to hang out with my local friends too), and I'd love to move there except I would almost have to have a car. Dallas is a little different in that its suburbs are fairly dense, but you have to go there, and...car again. And, for me, life is way,…

My aunt and uncle live in Dallas, and I could imagine if I moved there I would just make sure to be near a Dart station. Like others have said, it is fairly comprehensive for a commuter rail line.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#148

Post by matt_wulfeck »

rib3ye wrote: post #17
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

Im convinced that the next valley will happen in the place that can attract the most unmarried people ages 18 through 30. What do these people care about? - night life - high density urban living - progressive local governments and freedom (drug and marriage decriminalization). - good public transportation - access to high speed internet - good universities As they grow older and get married, affordable and high spee…

Start with the money (large projects financed by the federal government like NASA, then VCs). That will create the foundation.

That money typically first flows into research universities.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#149

Post by throwaway3724 »

eropple wrote: post #127
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.

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 w…

I've lived in small towns in Texas, and I've only found good natured people. Small town life is different. It's a little bit slower, I never had to deal with traffic, and I could drive anywhere in town in 5 minutes. But even my medium sized hometown (pop 60,000) stocked vegan cupcakes in the town bakery. Maybe it's not as progressive as Austin, but I don't appreciate how everybody else in the world writes it off as a joke.

I'm sure the evil bigots living somewhere, but I don't know where.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#150

Post by sotojuan »

Cshelton wrote: post #134
paulsutter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dallas misses on a few of pg's key points: it's a sprawling driving city, lack of a top university, and a red state culture. > Pittsburgh is fortunate in being a pre-car city. It's not too spread out. Because those 25 to 29 year olds do not like driving. They prefer walking, or bicycling, or taking public transport... Cities where you can get around without driving are just better period. > Pittsburgh has something P…

I wouldn't associate "red state culture" and a particular city in that state together. Remember, Austin is a city in Texas.... The 4 major cities in Texas in fact are either well mixed or liberal (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio). I hardly move my car on the weekends, get around just fine. My current job I have to commute by car (actually I could ride the train technically...), but many people walk/use public tr…

> Also, what is your definition of a "top university"? Ivy?

Great, well-known, research CS university. Think Stanford, Berkeley, etc. In Texas there's UT and to some extent Rice... neither in Dallas.

Post reply on HN