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It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

nytimes.com

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Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#91

Post by CPLX »

School-Cotton wrote: post #32
code4tee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backlash was mostly about the tax breaks and government subsidies that would have been given. The argument was that New York is New York and doesn’t need to bribe companies to put big offices here.

That was one reason for the backlash, but it wasn't "mostly" about that. I guarantee that people like AOC would have been against Amazon HQ2, subsidy or not. Edit to explain further: much of the backlash was about concerns like gentrification, or the inability of local infrastructure to handle 25k new residents.

No it wasn't. It was about giving them taxpayer money to do it.

Not that many people here care much about limiting development in general, especially in dense center city areas like the East River waterfront.

People were pissed that we were considering giving money to the richest guy in the world to do something that nearly every company seems desperately interested in doing anyways, namely locating businesses within a half mile radius of midtown manhattan.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#93

Post by CPLX »

TuringNYC wrote: post #20
nkozyra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NYC tech is in trouble. I don't see much support for your argument here. As I see it, the stance is NYC is a strong enough tech city to be able to say no to Amazon; to not need to bend to their every whim to bring them here.

I would agree that we didn't need to bend to their every whim. We could probably have given them no incentives or token incentives and still won the HQ2 deal. There was a time to do that -- when we were making the proposal, not after it was already agreed to by both sides. But that isn't the my argument -- my argument is that the entire rhetoric is nonsensical. My shock is the dual narrative on "tech pays too much --…

> the exit of 25,000 high paying jobs

When did that happen?

> NYC has really never recovered from the 2008 crash

Um, what?

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#94

Post by vonmoltke »

code4tee wrote: post #18
TuringNYC wrote: post #11

I realize the anti-Amazon movement was a limited (but loud) group of individuals, but if their level of influence has lasting power, NYC tech is in trouble. Consider NYTimes' own article on the amazon exit. Half the people angry at Amazon were commenting that Amazon wasn't going to pay living wages (thinking that corporate HQ2 jobs are fulfillment jobs.) The other half were angry that Amazon was going to pay too much…

The backlash was mostly about the tax breaks and government subsidies that would have been given. The argument was that New York is New York and doesn’t need to bribe companies to put big offices here.

> The backlash was mostly about the tax breaks and government subsidies that would have been given. The argument was that New York is New York and doesn’t need to bribe companies to put big offices here.

If that is the case, where are the calls to end the Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program[1], the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program[2], and the Excelsior Jobs Program[3]? That is where the vast majority of the credits came from. The backlash was because it was Amazon that wanted to take advantage of those programs, and do so after that ridiculous and condescending dog-and-pony show they called a search.

Now, some subset of opposition surely is from people who think no company that wants to build a large complex in LIC with 25,000 employees deserves billions in subsidies. If that is the case, those people need to work against the root causes and stop acting like this $3B package was some special deal for Amazon.

[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/benefits/benefits-industri...

[2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/benefits/business-reap.pag...

[3] https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#95

Post by CPLX »

okmokmz wrote: post #76
CPLX wrote: post #5

New York is the most important city in the history of world civilization, this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Everything genuinely important in this country ends up run from New York City eventually. People forget the Rockefellers made their money in Cleveland. But that aside NYC has always had a serious tech community since the electric grid was invented in lower Manhattan, or the transistor in suburban New Je…

> New York is the most important city in the history of world civilization, this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. I wouldn't even consider New York to be the most important city in the history of the US, much less world civilization

> I wouldn't even consider New York to be the most important city in the history of the US

lol

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#96

Post by vonmoltke »

coredog64 wrote: post #70
code4tee wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon didn’t withdraw from NYC. They still have around 5k employees here. Meanwhile Google is significantly expanding their NYC offices and nobody had to bribe them to do it.

Pretty sure Google is eligible for the same Empire State development grants that made up $2.5B of the $3B that Amazon was going to get.

Actually, the city credits (which constituted about $1.3B) are not available for businesses in Manhattan south of 96th St. That said, Lower Manhattan has its own incentive programs.

That said, I'm really getting annoyed at the people who are both ignorant of how Amazon was going to get its $3B in credits and assuming that other companies, like Google, are getting none simply because nobody talks about it.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#97

Post by iguy »

etblg wrote: post #81
nickelcitymario wrote: post #30

One of the biggest lessons I've taken from New York's approach is not to try and be the next Silicon Valley (as every community is trying to be). You can't beat the Valley at its own game. That's foolish. Instead, look to what industries your community has long been successful in, and develop the tech to disrupt those industries before the Valley does. NYC's example was to focus tech on advertising, finance, and medi…

I think the most critical flaw in Sudbury's plan, is that people would have to live in Sudbury (no offense) It's a small, cold, somewhat-remote city known for mining, and particularly for having an incredibly tall smokestack visible everywhere in town. You can fund startups, but who is going to move from other places to Sudbury?

Would be interesting to know how they grow, and whether they open another office elsewhere, for this reason?

It often sounds like what SV lacks is good ideas for what to spend all the money and talent on. Maybe the residents of Sudbury have an edge there -- presumably everybody knows a dozen people in the mining business, and is well sited to figure out what their pain points are. You just need a few of those people also know enough about tech to see how to help... and then hire a dozen coders elsewhere once they are needed.

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#98

Post by gammateam »

testudovictoria wrote: post #57
gammateam wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your whole post missed the important part about what can get funded and where. NYC is coming up, but the graveyard of quirky disruptors would still only be pursued in Silicon Valley. These non revenue generating companies acting as developer daycare need to be flipped from one portfolio to the next until you have a deal size big enough to matter, swap out the board and executive team and shop it to the public markets…

Maybe I'm missing something, but why are you talking only in terms of massive funding and growth. The GP stated that they're seeing success in smaller (I don't actually know the size) companies due to capitalizing on a local or hyperlocal need. That's far from disrupt, fund, flip, and retire, and it's a perfectly viable way to start, grow and maintain a business. Again, I could be missing the entire point of your com…

The point is that disrupting local industries gives only a narrow field of what can get funded

The graveyard of seemingly pointless portfolio pieces is a key component which nyc cant replicate

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#99

Post by leereeves »

TuringNYC wrote: post #89
leereeves wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at the first seven of those; one was a hotel and the rest were all high-density luxury towers, not affordable housing for blue collar workers. For example: https://www.buzzbuzzhome.com/us/the-forge

You're absolutely right, but I dont see what is wrong with that. When you build high-density luxury towers, it creates capacity and fewer people "push out" into bordering areas. Contrast this with the Bay Area where the lack of high-density luxury towers causes people to push miles out and buy homes. Would the Bay Area have a housing problem if there were ~20 more luxury high rises Palo Alto? Seems to be that would g…

I think that's probably true, and the Bay Area needs more high density housing, but lessening the impact is not eliminating the impact.

So perhaps it's less harmful for the current residents of Queens, but it's still negative. Why should they not oppose that?

Re: It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#100

Post by jkaptur »

jkaptur wrote: post #25
TuringNYC wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that we didn't need to bend to their every whim. We could probably have given them no incentives or token incentives and still won the HQ2 deal. There was a time to do that -- when we were making the proposal, not after it was already agreed to by both sides. But that isn't the my argument -- my argument is that the entire rhetoric is nonsensical. My shock is the dual narrative on "tech pays too much --…

> NYC has really never recovered from the 2008 crash when ~500,000 well paying finance jobs were compressed/reduced/automated. Can you expand on that, or provide a citation/link? It doesn’t ring true to me (a New Yorker who worked in finance in 2008), but I’d love to learn more.

Ok... I see that you edited rather than reply.

I'd be very interested if you could find that link.

Let me answer your anecdote with another anecdote: I worked for one of the banks that disappeared (Merrill), and it's not like they just locked the doors. Many, many employees (like me) just became workers at Bank of America. Even given extremely generous assumptions, your 500k number sounds off by at least an order of magnitude.

The statement "NYC has never really recovered" still doesn't seem right to me.

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