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Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

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51–60 of 138 posts

Re: Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

#51

According to wikipedia, it also has more engineers per square meter than any state in the US. Not quite the trashy state people are led to believe it is. Now that NYC is not affordable for startups, NJ will become a perfectly respectable tech/Start up hub. And good for it.

It's also the most densely populated state overall, so it presumably has more of most kinds of people per square meter than most if not all states.

See also: https://xkcd.com/1138/

Re: Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

#53

Even as Silicon Valley was still in its infancy, a group of organizations including Bell, MCI, GM, and others hired Fred Terman from Stanford to make NJ more like what Silicon Valley (NJ and SV share a ton of similarities, i did a tedx talk about it below [1]) but Terman was unsuccessful. He pointed to how Princeton was not focused enough on applied science the way Stanford was. East coast politics and stock market d…

Stanford of the East title is taken already. :-)

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/dabo-swinney-turned-clemson-mod...

> Swinney enjoys joshing his close friend David Shaw, the Stanford coach, about how Clemson is "the Stanford of the East Coast and they're the Clemson of the West Coast."

Re: Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people on HN seem to forget that many strides in computer science, computer architecture, and mathematics came from schools that don't start with an "S" and are from outside of the Bay Area. I think it is more that the definition of how you measure innovation has shifted over time -- now it is based on how many dollars are raised for your venture vs. actual strides being made in academic fields of study.

....but still from a HYPSM.

They have the Ivy League in Germany and Switzerland?

Re: Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

#56

According to wikipedia, it also has more engineers per square meter than any state in the US. Not quite the trashy state people are led to believe it is. Now that NYC is not affordable for startups, NJ will become a perfectly respectable tech/Start up hub. And good for it.

NJ also has the most people per square meter than any other state so that might be misleading. Also many of them might live in NJ but work in NYC/Philly

Not trying to diss NJ though, it definitely gets a bad rap from a few trashy people. They're in NYC and Philly too but Jersey seems to get blamed for it.

Re: Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

#57
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your comment a bit gratuitous. These seminal figures come up somewhat regularly on HN and it's no secret that these great minds hailed from Austria, Britain, Hungary, Germany etc.

Sure, but 100 years ago none of them would have thought of moving to Northern CA, where now they are more likely to go there than the East Coast.

MIT, CMU, Princeton, Harvard and Cornell are all top schools for C.S. and those are all still on the East Coast. None of these schools have any difficulty attracting top talent from around the world.

Re: Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

#59
And before NJ the US tech hub was Baltimore. Information technology has been built into the economic history of the United States for quite some time.

The first electronic telegraph ran from DC to Bmore. Prior to the telegraph and it's forerunner, the optical telegraph, the fastest way to transmit goods and information were the Clipper ships coming out of the port of Baltimore (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Clipper).

If you're interested in reading more economic history I highly recommend both The Weather Experiment (https://www.amazon.com/Weather-Experiment-Pioneers-Sought-Fu...) and Empire of Cotton (https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Cotton-History-Sven-Beckert/dp...)

Re: Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Reigned As Nation's Center Of Innovation

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Jersey is done. The same 1950s attitudes/laws that caused it to lose the industry are still there. That's why it's tech scene consists mostly of big doofy defense contractors and Comcast.

Perhaps, But, I'm wagering that with NYC pricing out anyone but wall st banks, the pressure will build and it will change out of necessity. NJ shall be remade and reborn!

Not with the insane property taxes and other regulatory friction. Highest property taxes in the country. It also has some of the highest auto insurance rates in the country as well. Health insurance is also higher than in neighboring NYC (at least the last time I checked a few years ago.)

All of the Democrat candidates for NJ governor want to raise taxes even more.

NJ also has the most underfunded public pension system in the country. -- a $44 billion shortfall. As a tech entrepreneur, I'd be very nervous about locating in a state that could, at any moment decide that those "wealthy tech companies" ought to be bailing out decades of financial mismanagement.

NJ also ranked 49th in "Small Business Friendliness" -- California was 50th. New York was 48th.

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2014/12/nj_is_a_terribl...

South Dakota, Nevada and Texas were the top three.

If anywhere should be the "next" place, it should probably be Houston -- one of the most diverse cities in the country, low taxes, access to a massive academic medical center, NASA, the energy industry, low cost of living, Rice University (pioneers in nano-tech including a Nobel winners,) University of Houston, including Paul Chu in superconducting. Texas A&M is about an hour away with more Nobel winners, including the 1996 Nobel in Physics and substantial engineering and science research programs

New Jersey does have Princeton of course and access to NYC (if that actually matters.) New Jersey's only "attraction" other than Princeton is "proximity to New York." I would have to see some actual data to be convinced that "proximity to New York" actually has a material affect on the success of startups. It's a fallacy that being in San Fran or NYC actually matters.

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