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Cities and Ambition

paulgraham.com

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Re: Cities and Ambition

#221

Post by comatose_kid »

earthboundkid wrote: post #171
maxklein wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the cleverest guy in this room. I once took an online IQ test and only got 115. To be fair, lots of questions were things like "What of this has no relationship with Kansas". But I digress... If a person trying to communicate cannot make his point understood by any but the most intelligent, then he has failed in communicating.

It depends on the point and the audience. If the point is complex enough, then you have to give up on conveying it to certain people. If the audience is smart enough, you reach past the lowest common denominator. Indeed, the best way to write something that lasts for ages is to write something that ordinary people reject, bright people don't really understand, and the smart fall head over heels in love with. That's w…

I wonder if 'the point is complex enough, then you have to give up on conveying it to certain people' is true.

That Feynman could explain fairly abstract physical concepts such that laypeople could understand them may imply that one needs to understand the 'complex point' better before trying to explain it.

Re: Cities and Ambition

#222

Post by netcan »

hugh wrote: post #69
edw519 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"your best best is probably to try living in several places when you're young" I have, and here's what they've said to me: Pittsburgh: You should be nice. New Jersey: You should be in New York. Los Angeles: You should go outside. Phoenix: You should go inside. Detroit: You should be glad you have a good job. Tampa: You should buy a new pair of flip flops for dinner Saturday night.

Places I've lived: Sydney: You should spend more money on real estate. Melbourne: You should spend more money on clothes. London: You should have been here 150 years ago. Davis, CA: You should leave Davis, CA.

Tel Aviv: You should be moving faster. A lot faster. Dublin: Be wittier then smart. Melbourne: I agree. Its a confused message that definitely has to do with sports not clothes.

Re: Cities and Ambition

#223

Post by ccwu »

This is one of PG's more observant and better essays. I was just in Boulder, CO and I tried to figure out if I could move back there from Silicon Valley. Not sure.

One thing I think that PG missed is that some cities have a blend of ambitions that lean on each other. NYC differs from LA or the Bay Area in that it is a power center for many different fields (Finance, Arts, Literature, Media, Political (UN based there)) while the Bay Area is technology, LA is entertainment and Washington DC, political power. That mix leads to better eavesdropping. London is about the only other place where I get the mixed vibe. Cambridge is interesting in that MIT and Harvard shape different spectrums of thought leading to an almost NYC kind of diversity Whereas Stanford and Berkeley compete on the same spectrum of fields, but on different levels of social class.

I wonder if PG forwarded this to Joel Spolsky who is about creating a different kind of start up in a NYC mold instead of SV mold.

Re: Cities and Ambition

#224

Post by consigliere »

noyb wrote: post #182

Hilarious. I've always thought Cambridge's message was "You're not a student. Go away."

Or on the other hand ... "once you've been a student, please stick around and join a high tech firm".

One of the most distinctive things about Cambridge MA is the concentration of large numbers of people stay in the area who are intellectuals but are not working closely with the colleges -- instead they're at IT startups and biotechs & pharmas of all sizes.

In a New York their numbers would be swamped - and there are loads of intellectuals in Manhattan & Brooklyn, just less than financiers, fashionistas, and hipsters -- but greater Boston is just not that big.

On the other hand, Cambridge, England is, despite being arguably a better place to study (quieter, and more supportive institutionally) just too small for this -- almost everyone moves away from the city once they are not formally a member of the university, most commonly to London.

Of course I could be biased by seeing the job ads in Lisp on the Red Line :)

Re: Cities and Ambition

#225

Post by MikeGale »

Shame on you Paul. You discriminate against startups because of where they setup!

Seriously. In an Internet age it's less important.

I know many people depend on others to give them ideas, encourage their thinking and drive them in whatever direction. There are other kinds of people in the world. You may not hear of them but they're there. Maslow's self actualisers, the prophet in his desert cave... Often times their thoughts and interests are so different from those around them that they are in an intellectual wilderness with no option to escape. For them Cambridge or LaLa land are pretty irrelevent, no place is going to help them.

Now in that case the net may ultimately have a real impact.

If they can get a filtered group devoid of trolls, newbies and all the things that destroy and dilute real thinking they might be better off in a virtual community.

Your message is meaningful for many but it ignores an important sub set.

Re: Cities and Ambition

#226

Post by rms »

jimbokun wrote: post #113
edw519 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"your best best is probably to try living in several places when you're young" I have, and here's what they've said to me: Pittsburgh: You should be nice. New Jersey: You should be in New York. Los Angeles: You should go outside. Phoenix: You should go inside. Detroit: You should be glad you have a good job. Tampa: You should buy a new pair of flip flops for dinner Saturday night.

"Pittsburgh: You should be nice." Being a native Western Pennsylvania, and living more of my adult life in Pittsburgh than anywhere else, I'll take that as a compliment :). I moved to NYC with my wife right after we were married, and loved every minute of it. But decided to return here to raise our kids after they were born. An interesting thing about Pittsburgh is the number of large non-profits of every kind, espec…

And our biggest employer and company is a non-profit! The hulking University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Re: Cities and Ambition

#228

Post by walterk »

Berkeley: You should be more eccentric.

Atlanta, so far as I can tell, doesn't have much of a message at all.

Having visited Cambridge over spring break, I'm definitely enamored with the intellectual climate there, and will be moving to a nearby city in a few days (with the intention of moving to Cambridge proper when I can afford it). Getting to live in Cambridge is important enough to me that I'm hesitant to even consider applying to YC's winter round. San Francisco, to me, is essentially a laid back, less dense, more confusing, poorer, sleepier, cobbled-together, more hipster version of New York.

Re: Cities and Ambition

#229

Post by astrec »

bootload wrote: post #135
hugh wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Places I've lived: Sydney: You should spend more money on real estate. Melbourne: You should spend more money on clothes. London: You should have been here 150 years ago. Davis, CA: You should leave Davis, CA.

"... Melbourne: You should spend more money on clothes ..." No it's more like... Melbourne: You live in the sports capital of a sports crazed country. You should go to the footy, the cricket, tennis and don't forget some new duds on cup day.

You forgot to mention the obligatory beers at each event.

Re: Cities and Ambition

#230

Post by delackner »

davidw wrote: post #151
ardit33 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joke of the day: What do you call an european with no sense of humor..... drums... German!! In other news, an immigrant will always feel as second class citizen in most of europe, and Germany has a bad reputation about it. In some parts of East germany there is some Neo-Nazi resurrection, and there is lots of xenophobia. The states it is a total different thing. It depends where you are. In SF i just don't feel forei…

As another anecdote, here in Austria, which for many things has similar laws to Germany, you can't have dual citizenship, and being born here doesn't confer citizenship on you, as it does in places like the US, or Italy. So our daughter will be Italian and American, despite being born in Austria (not that we would have wanted it otherwise, but still...). I met a German guy in the states, who was born and raised there…

You can find a list of countries that deny citizenship to people born in that country of parents who are not of the "right" blood, yet have lived in the country for many years. It is one of the strongest indicators of institutional racism I can think of that is still in practice in many modern nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis

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