Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#21

Post by jawngee » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:38 PM UTC

aditya wrote: post #6

Frankly, it's almost impossible to find good engineers in NYC. The banks do take them all, that doesn't mean that it's impossible to start up in the city, it is just harder. On the west coasts, startups compete with other startups and employees bounce around making similar amounts of money. In New York, startups compete with financial institutions which can and do throw enormous amounts of cash at employees without a…

I have to agree with this. It took us (massify.com) forever to find talent.

NYC has an agency mindset which doesn't work in a startup environment. So you hire people from razorfish, digitas, r/ga, etc. but they're expecting the same 9-5 lifestyle and have a hard time adjusting.

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#22

Post by jawngee » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:39 PM UTC

j2d2 wrote: post #20

When PG says New York City, I usually take it to mean Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are both pretty awesome. If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. Edit: on this topic, I believe reddit started in brooklyn and later relocated. Can anyone confirm?

I'm down.

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#23

Post by dpapathanasiou » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:43 PM UTC

j2d2 wrote: post #20

When PG says New York City, I usually take it to mean Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are both pretty awesome. If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. Edit: on this topic, I believe reddit started in brooklyn and later relocated. Can anyone confirm?

If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers.

I'll second that.

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#24

Post by tstegart » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:44 PM UTC

j2d2 wrote: post #20

When PG says New York City, I usually take it to mean Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are both pretty awesome. If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. Edit: on this topic, I believe reddit started in brooklyn and later relocated. Can anyone confirm?

I'm down for that as well. It could be the rotating borough meet-up. The Beer Garden in Queens, a cafe in Manhattan, Brooklyn or the Bronx. Um... whatever is in Staten Island.

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#25

Post by j2d2 » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:47 PM UTC

tstegart wrote: post #24

j2d2 wrote: post #20

When PG says New York City, I usually take it to mean Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are both pretty awesome. If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. Edit: on this topic, I believe reddit started in brooklyn and later relocated. Can anyone confirm?

I'm down for that as well. It could be the rotating borough meet-up. The Beer Garden in Queens, a cafe in Manhattan, Brooklyn or the Bronx. Um... whatever is in Staten Island.

You're talking my language!

jdennis@gmail.com

Whoever is interested, please email me. I'll send out a message with all the email addresses I receive to coordinate. And ya'll can pass it around accordingly.

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#26

Post by sebg » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:48 PM UTC

j2d2 wrote: post #20

When PG says New York City, I usually take it to mean Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are both pretty awesome. If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. Edit: on this topic, I believe reddit started in brooklyn and later relocated. Can anyone confirm?

sounds good.

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#27

Post by shawndrost » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:51 PM UTC

"I'm going to disprove your generalization with my anecdotes."

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#28

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:59 PM UTC

dpapathanasiou wrote: post #23

j2d2 wrote: post #20

When PG says New York City, I usually take it to mean Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are both pretty awesome. If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. Edit: on this topic, I believe reddit started in brooklyn and later relocated. Can anyone confirm?

If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. I'll second that.

[deleted]

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#29

Post by fleaflicker » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 10:00 PM UTC

j2d2 wrote: post #20

When PG says New York City, I usually take it to mean Manhattan. Brooklyn and Queens are both pretty awesome. If anyone here is from NYC, I'd love to start some real-life gatherings for YC'ers. Edit: on this topic, I believe reddit started in brooklyn and later relocated. Can anyone confirm?

Tech meetup is pretty decent

http://newtech.meetup.com/1/

Re: Why Paul Graham is wrong about New York City

#30

Post by Zev » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 10:15 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #11

Have you seen rents in NYC, how about try to shop for groceries? That's right, that place is so expensive that it is hard not to be worried about money all the damn time. So, yes, NYC to a certain point is more about money than anything else. I have seen it even in dating, when you see so many good looking girls, just dating around so they can have the "Sex and the City" glam life, that they couldn't afford themselve…

Well you folks on the west coast started "valley girl" - does that even things out?

Rent might be expensive here, but the west coast is hardly the cheapest place to live either. Just look at prices in LA for example.

True, if you want to live in the middle of one of the most expensive cities in the world, its going to be expensive. But if you move out of the center of Manhattan and into the rest of the city, it's not as expensive at all.