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Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

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Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#141

Post by JackFr »

randomdata wrote: post #76
mdolon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in both SOMA and the Mission, I wholeheartedly disagree. The vast majority of people I met at coffee shops, restaurants or bars in the city worked in tech. Living in Manhattan (East Village) and Brooklyn provided a completely different experience. It was a rare to meet people who work in tech. In both circumstances, I haven't been going out of my way to try to meet people in any specific industry.

> Having lived in both SOMA and the Mission, I wholeheartedly disagree. No need to rely on anecdotes though. According to San Francisco’s Controller’s Office, a little over 6% of the population work in the tech industry[1]. That is an unquestionably small minority of the overall population. If the people you have met predominantly worked in tech, it is likely due to a bubble you created yourself. Perhaps, for example…

> a little over 6% of the population work in the tech industry

I'm sure many people are cooks, janitors, bus drivers and the like and I'm sure a many people work for the the state, county or city (especially including healthcare). Any city needs services both private and municipal -- but they are not the driver of the economic engine.

I imagine that 6% would be much higher if we excluded non-service, non-municipal jobs.

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#143

Post by nerfhammer »

jimmy1 wrote: post #71
hullo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a tech worker raising my family in Brooklyn and it's quite lovely. Expensive, yes, but lovely. Whether you find it a "rat race" of a lifestyle or not is much more dependent on your internal psychology than the city itself.

I have heard Brooklyn is gentrifying at a rapid pace, but back when I was there, Brooklyn just wasn't an option.

Do you have any idea how big Brooklyn is?

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#144

Post by replicatorblog »

clairity wrote: post #124
replicatorblog wrote: post #61

"official" FTEs is one way to slice it, but kind of dumb. Seattle is home to two of the five biggest tech companies in the US. Boston has had an IPO every year for the last ten years that exceeds any in NYC history. LA has had the only 11-digit IPO in the last five years, outside of the bay area. It's also capturing the zeitgeist in a way that NYC no longer does (that's subjective, of course, but I'd debate it). Just…

in my head (a totally unscientific read of the zeitgeist), it's 1. SF/SV (by a very wide margin) 2. LA, NYC, boston (3-way tie) 3. seattle, austin (2-way tie) 4. atlanta, chicago, and everywhere else obviously this is US-only since i don't know much about the international startup scene other than china in general has been exploding with competitive startups (although that seems to have cooled a bit?).

I'd move Boston into tier 3. It's actually an incredibly rich ecosystem, I'd put it #3 just behind SF/Seattle in terms of real-world impact, market cap of tech co's, etc. But no one really moves to Boston to start a company, they tend to be the folks who hung around after Harvard/MIT.

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#145

Post by Apocryphon »

clairity wrote: post #124
replicatorblog wrote: post #61

"official" FTEs is one way to slice it, but kind of dumb. Seattle is home to two of the five biggest tech companies in the US. Boston has had an IPO every year for the last ten years that exceeds any in NYC history. LA has had the only 11-digit IPO in the last five years, outside of the bay area. It's also capturing the zeitgeist in a way that NYC no longer does (that's subjective, of course, but I'd debate it). Just…

in my head (a totally unscientific read of the zeitgeist), it's 1. SF/SV (by a very wide margin) 2. LA, NYC, boston (3-way tie) 3. seattle, austin (2-way tie) 4. atlanta, chicago, and everywhere else obviously this is US-only since i don't know much about the international startup scene other than china in general has been exploding with competitive startups (although that seems to have cooled a bit?).

I feel like 2. and 3. are switched. LA/NY are tech cities because they are huge population areas with a lot of wealth, and so support almost every type of industry. Seattle and Austin both sound more like tech cultural cities, as they are smaller but more defined by tech, with both local giants (maybe ATX less so) and startups.

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#146

Post by vorpalhex »

xyhopguy wrote: post #134
CydeWeys wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to see more of those CoL comparisons. How big of a place are you pricing for NYC, and in which neighborhood? Are you factoring in the savings from not needing a car? You can find CoL calculators out there, and they have their faults, but Seattle is already an expensive city in its own right, and I simply don't see how you possibly got NYC to come out double. That's way out of line with the calculators.

I've also done this math -- price per sqft is wayy better in Seattle and you don't necessarily need a car. In any case, a metro card isnt cheap. The cost of groceries/alcohol is also much much higher in nyc and at a lower quality. I have a postdoc friend who lives in Seattle on slightly less than I do. They have a huge 1br in cap Hill with parking next to the subway with a short committee downtown or to UW. Meanwhile…

While I agree with your opinions here, those things are also somewhat personal. I place a lot of value on large housing, cheap car ownership and easy access to nice outdoor spaces.

A lot of other folks place more value on not needing a car ever, lots of easy food delivery options, and access to any kind or show or performance you might ever want to see without having to travel.

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#147

Post by cimmanom »

prophetjohn wrote: post #139
acconrad wrote: post #18

What is Boston doing wrong? In the 80s thanks to the 128 Tech Row, it was on par with Silicon Valley as the top spot, then it lost ground and now NYC is considered #2? We have the highest concentration of collegiate tech talent, the same weather as NYC (obviously worse than SV), lower cost of living than both cities, and there's been a ton of investment in real estate for tech companies in the Seaport District. Too l…

I know it's a minor point, but Boston absolutely does not have the same weather as NYC. The winters are so much worse in Boston. I'm a current NYC-er finding NYC too expensive to raise my family and the winter there is the only thing pulling me away from Boston, which is otherwise quite attractive.

Yeah, the weather this past holiday season, for instance, was a once-a-decade sort of event and 20-40 degrees colder than usual. Our compatriots in Boston were laughing at us, saying "that's just another Tuesday up here".

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#148

Post by electricslpnsld »

jimmy1 wrote: post #66
chimeracoder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High stress, high pollution, rat race of a lifestyle, you are regulated and taxed on more things you even thought possible New York has incredibly low pollution compared to other cities of comparable size, especially in the US. As for "regulated and taxed on more things than you even thought possible"... are you sure you're not thinking of California?

No I am thinking about my family and I and our experiences living there. When I say Pollution, I am not just saying air pollution. I physically felt dirty the minute I stepped out into the street after getting ready for work. I would wash my hair and it would streak of dirt. The subway is absolutely filthy. Bathrooms anywhere but expensive restaurants are filthy. Sidewalks were filthy. Streets are filthy. The water t…

> When I say Pollution, I am not just saying air pollution. I physically felt dirty the minute I stepped out into the street after getting ready for work. I would wash my hair and it would streak of dirt. The subway is absolutely filthy. Bathrooms anywhere but expensive restaurants are filthy. Sidewalks were filthy. Streets are filthy. The water that pools up at the sides of crosswalks was everywhere -- and was filthy. It's the definition of a big dirty city.

When did you live in New York? This mostly reads like an outdated stereotype of the city from the 1980s. I grew up in Queens and lived in NYC until I was 18, and I never had to wash dirt out of my hair from pollution (unless I had been rolling around in a park as a little kid).

Hell, I was recently back in the city visiting family and was amazed at how much cleaner midtown has gotten over the past few years.

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#149

Post by timr »

randomdata wrote: post #76
mdolon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in both SOMA and the Mission, I wholeheartedly disagree. The vast majority of people I met at coffee shops, restaurants or bars in the city worked in tech. Living in Manhattan (East Village) and Brooklyn provided a completely different experience. It was a rare to meet people who work in tech. In both circumstances, I haven't been going out of my way to try to meet people in any specific industry.

> Having lived in both SOMA and the Mission, I wholeheartedly disagree. No need to rely on anecdotes though. According to San Francisco’s Controller’s Office, a little over 6% of the population work in the tech industry[1]. That is an unquestionably small minority of the overall population. If the people you have met predominantly worked in tech, it is likely due to a bubble you created yourself. Perhaps, for example…

"If the people you have met predominantly worked in tech, it is likely due to a bubble you created yourself. Perhaps, for example, the majority of the population outside of tech cannot afford to spend time at those coffee shops and restaurants?"

And yet, since moving from SF (after nearly a decade) to NYC, I can confirm the OP's observation that I rarely encounter people who work at tech companies, anywhere in the city. Regardless of whether or not you think we're creating a bubble for ourselves by how we live our lives, the reality is that the bubble is different in New York. And it's not like there aren't tech workers here: there are just a lot more of other kinds of people.

For me, personally, it's refreshing. San Francisco has descended into a form of groupthink self-parody that is uninspiring for people who like to make new things.

Re: Tech takes over: New York is the sector's second city

#150

Post by whack »

JOnAgain wrote: post #107
whack wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the criteria you chose seem like bad proxies for the things that really matter. I would count the following as the fundamental metrics that really count. - Average (high-end) programmer salary - Amount of VC funding - Total number of full-time tech workers The 1st and 2nd criteria determine how attractive the city is, for employees and founders respectively. The 3rd criteria determines how much clustering/network…

You get paid more gross in NYC than Seattle, but the take-home is less due to taxes. Cost of living is also approximately double. I did the math last year -- offer was 5% higher in NYC, but the after-tax and living disposable income was 50% higher in Seattle. 2/3rd the gross pay in Austin probably gives a significant "raise" in terms of relative standard of living and maybe 1/4 the money in many parts of Asia would m…

You're right, COL adjusted salary is a more accurate metric. According to NerdWallet, COL in Brooklyn is ~22% higher than Seattle. If you're looking at Manhattan, you should be comparing Manhattan vs Seattle-Downtown. Living in Seattle outside of downtown is more comparable to living in Brooklyn.

The really lucrative jobs in NYC, are the ones with Hedge Funds that are based entirely in NYC. Places like 2-sigma, Jane-st, DE-Shaw, Jump, and others. The offers they make, are hard to match anywhere else, even after COL adjustments. If you're considering a job at a random NYC tech company though, I agree that the salary may not make up for COL.

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