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Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

nytimes.com

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Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#21

Post by pesenti »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #15
CydeWeys wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you speak to Pittsburgh's zoning policies? SF makes it nearly impossible to add a significant number of new housing units because the zoning policies don't allow less dense housing to be replaced with larger, taller apartment buildings. Hopefully Pittsburgh isn't like that.

It is not. I am a fourth generation Pittsburgh native. The bigger problem is the NIMBYs in SF that vote for things like "zoning policies" to protect the value of their houses. This situation is a very uniquely San Francisco one. The vast majority of houses in Pittsburgh aren't million dollar homes (yet) so this NIMBY-ism just doesn't happen. It goes without saying that ludicrous regulations like "historically protect…

I was about to comment "no way, Pittsburgh also has the $10 toast"... but then looking around to the place I used to go to, I realize it's more like $4-$5 (see http://www.coca-cafe.net/breakfast.php or https://www.facebook.com/B52PGH/menu/). Wow, I left Pittsburgh for NYC just two years ago and my frame of reference has already completely switched...

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#22

Post by Avshalom »

nugget wrote: post #9
pesenti wrote: post #8

I lived in Pittsburgh for 17 years. I bootstrapped a company out of CMU, grew it to $25M/year in revenue and sold it to IBM. Pittsburgh is a great place to start a company, lots of tech talent, lots of support and exposure in the community, cheap rent. And it is today a much more enjoyable place to live than 20 years ago (great restaurant scene, bike paths, revitalized downtown). There are two big drawbacks: finding…

> It's just really hard to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh. I'm an angel investor in a few dozen tech startups, about half in the Bay Area and half spread elsewhere around the country. The biggest problem with those outside of the Bay Area is that for lack of a better term "they don't think big enough". A lot of the promising ones turn into lifestyle-type businesses (e.g. a focus on services revenue in…

>> lifestyle-type businesses

e.g. profitable.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#23

Post by thearn4 »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #20
nugget wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just really hard to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh. I'm an angel investor in a few dozen tech startups, about half in the Bay Area and half spread elsewhere around the country. The biggest problem with those outside of the Bay Area is that for lack of a better term "they don't think big enough". A lot of the promising ones turn into lifestyle-type businesses (e.g. a focus on services revenue in…

Which is more of an issue with those VCs than the founders; there are a number of self-driving car startups here and they have a unique advantage: they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles (indeed, CMU won 1st place i…

It's an interesting point that robust autonomous systems may be more likely to emerge in organizations from places that have distinct seasons (including a perennial 'orange construction barrel' season).

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#24

Post by sAuronas »

joeblau wrote: post #7

I moved to Pittsburgh a year and a half ago after living in SF for 5 years and I can say that I really love it here. Food is great, people are extremely friendly, and the town is just a great town to be in. I met a Pittsburgh native and I told him that I've noticed that parts of the city are getting "SFed." A few neighborhoods which no one would be caught dead in 5-10 years ago are suddenly bustling with tech company…

Every city in the country has the potential to "SF'ed" - zoning laws make it so. If there is one place we would actually benefit from deregulation (as a country) it would be in eliminating zoning regulation. The places that need it most are the places that attract tech-boomification [sic] (Oakland is another example). A solution would be to encourage even growth across a city through targeting neighborhoods with inclusive development from a fungible pot of funds from the new revenues. This, coupled with expedited approvals and (not-yet-create) anti-NIMBY laws could make shit awesome for every one.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#25

Post by whopa »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #20
nugget wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just really hard to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh. I'm an angel investor in a few dozen tech startups, about half in the Bay Area and half spread elsewhere around the country. The biggest problem with those outside of the Bay Area is that for lack of a better term "they don't think big enough". A lot of the promising ones turn into lifestyle-type businesses (e.g. a focus on services revenue in…

Which is more of an issue with those VCs than the founders; there are a number of self-driving car startups here and they have a unique advantage: they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles (indeed, CMU won 1st place i…

> they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles

Careful, don't compare Pittsburgh to an entire state. Pennsylvania doesn't have any real mountains, whereas California does. Google tests their self driving vehicles in the Lake Tahoe area, which in the winter can be much more challenging than anywhere in within 500 miles of Pittsburgh.

Navigating serious grade changes, both uphill and downhill, presents more of a challenge for trucks too, even for humans right now. The only places to really test that in the US are pretty much west of Denver.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#26

Post by Hydraulix989 »

whopa wrote: post #25
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is more of an issue with those VCs than the founders; there are a number of self-driving car startups here and they have a unique advantage: they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles (indeed, CMU won 1st place i…

> they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles Careful, don't compare Pittsburgh to an entire state. Pennsylvania doesn't have any real mountains, whereas California does. Google tests their self driving vehicles in the…

As an SF transplant, my only thoughts after seeing California drivers struggling with the artificial snow and hills at Tahoe were "these people have never been to Pittsburgh."

Also, eastern Pennsylvania has the Appalachian mountains, and last time I checked, they were "real."

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#27

Post by mcgrath_sh »

CydeWeys wrote: post #14
joeblau wrote: post #7

I moved to Pittsburgh a year and a half ago after living in SF for 5 years and I can say that I really love it here. Food is great, people are extremely friendly, and the town is just a great town to be in. I met a Pittsburgh native and I told him that I've noticed that parts of the city are getting "SFed." A few neighborhoods which no one would be caught dead in 5-10 years ago are suddenly bustling with tech company…

Can you speak to Pittsburgh's zoning policies? SF makes it nearly impossible to add a significant number of new housing units because the zoning policies don't allow less dense housing to be replaced with larger, taller apartment buildings. Hopefully Pittsburgh isn't like that.

Pittsburgh also has a lot of underdeveloped waterfront real estate and still has room to develop in a lot of areas within an hour (or closer) drive of downtown. Over the last 20 years, a lot of areas that used to be mills (all along the waterfronts) have become entertainment areas (restaurants, movie theaters, shops, and bars) with mid-sized apartment buildings or town houses that are in close proximity to them. Over the last 5 years, it has become more popular to live in downtown proper too. There are a lot of areas that have gone from being not very populated to places people want to live with great school districts. The one thing I wish we would fix would be public transportation. Unless you are trying to get downtown, public transit is essentially useless, especially when trying to get to the other side of the city. There are very few bus routes that run late at night and the rail system essentially only services those who live in the South Hills.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#28

Post by theYipster »

pesenti wrote: post #8

I lived in Pittsburgh for 17 years. I bootstrapped a company out of CMU, grew it to $25M/year in revenue and sold it to IBM. Pittsburgh is a great place to start a company, lots of tech talent, lots of support and exposure in the community, cheap rent. And it is today a much more enjoyable place to live than 20 years ago (great restaurant scene, bike paths, revitalized downtown). There are two big drawbacks: finding…

I've long found a third drawback, which may be linked to the access to capital issue, is Pittsburgh's geographical isolation compared to the Bay Area and other tech hot spots.

There's no major international air hub (anymore) and flights even to nearby cities such as NY, DC, and Philly are relatively pricey with limited schedules. There's no meaningful international service either anymore. This is in comparison to SFO, which has direct international service to many cities in Asia and Europe and fancy flat-bed planes (on the hour) to NYC... Austin has direct service to London and Frankfurt and flights every 30 minutes to mega hubs in Dallas and Houston, and well, New York is New York.

Even by car, the closest nearest city at a two hours without traffic is ... Cleveland, and while Philly, DC, and NYC are drivable, you're looking at 4-5 hours without traffic to Philly or DC and 6-7 hours to NYC if you're lucky. And it's not the easiest of drives either with the winding and truck-filled PA Turnpike.

Even within the metro area, there isn't much outside the downtown core. A few nice suburbs to the north, south, and east, but there isn't anything to the scale of the Bay Area, even with it's housing crunch, nor the Pacific Northwest, nor even Austin / San-Antonio.

In short, it's hard to get to and out of, and while there's an exciting transformation going on, at the end of the day unless someone revives PIT as a major transit hub, it's still going to be a relatively isolated post-industrial mid-western rust-belt city.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#29

Post by Hydraulix989 »

theYipster wrote: post #28
pesenti wrote: post #8

I lived in Pittsburgh for 17 years. I bootstrapped a company out of CMU, grew it to $25M/year in revenue and sold it to IBM. Pittsburgh is a great place to start a company, lots of tech talent, lots of support and exposure in the community, cheap rent. And it is today a much more enjoyable place to live than 20 years ago (great restaurant scene, bike paths, revitalized downtown). There are two big drawbacks: finding…

I've long found a third drawback, which may be linked to the access to capital issue, is Pittsburgh's geographical isolation compared to the Bay Area and other tech hot spots. There's no major international air hub (anymore) and flights even to nearby cities such as NY, DC, and Philly are relatively pricey with limited schedules. There's no meaningful international service either anymore. This is in comparison to SFO…

I totally agree. I wrote to the mayor about this, and we could definitely use more help raising awareness to the city about this very pressing issue (@billpeduto on Twitter if you're also affected)... I've never had an SFOPIT flight without layovers.

Also, we ask everyone here to please continue to refrain from using the pejorative "rust-belt" to describe our beloved hometown and emerging tech center. It is a very unwelcoming word. Thank you!

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#30

Post by whopa »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #26
whopa wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they aren't biased by the immaculate freeways and roads in California -- Pittsburgh has a much wider variety of challenging driving situations, weather, and conditions than California so it is a great test bed for developing autonomous vehicles Careful, don't compare Pittsburgh to an entire state. Pennsylvania doesn't have any real mountains, whereas California does. Google tests their self driving vehicles in the…

As an SF transplant, my only thoughts after seeing California drivers struggling with the artificial snow and hills at Tahoe were "these people have never been to Pittsburgh." Also, eastern Pennsylvania has the Appalachian mountains, and last time I checked, they were "real."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Davis_(Pennsylvania) - 3,213 ft - highest point in PA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejon_Pass - 4,160 ft

Tejon Pass is on I-5 in northern LA County, and it is a huge trucking route. The grade is very steep between the Central Valley and the top of the pass, and is fairly challenging for trucks. There is no equivalent to those conditions in PA.

Also, if your impression of Tahoe is only the heavily touristed parts, your view is incomplete. The mountain roads in the Sierras have no equivalent east of the Mississippi.

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