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Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

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Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#31

Post by baguasquirrel »

bcantrill wrote: post #18

In my experience, the only people who weigh in on these debates are those who do not live in Silicon Valley -- like any epicenter for anything, those of us who have made our careers here hardly give a damn how the rest of the world compares themselves to us. (Or to put this another way: New Yorkers do not sit around debating if or that New York is the world's epicenter for finance.) But as someone who has grown sligh…

I couldn't disagree more. I moved back to NYC because after six years in the Valley, I thought I needed some change. I have two major gripes with the Valley.

The first is that it is a bubble chamber. People there follow their passions. This is a good thing but I believe they are out of touch with the common folk.

The second is what I perceive to be a general, blatant disregard for non-engineering and non-data-driven approaches to startups. I remember when I was figuring out my own project, I had wanted to take a more design-oriented approach to it, and one well-meaning friend suggested I create a "contest" to attract designers (i.e. get them to do some work for free). At least he didn't flick off the idea of making design of central importance, on par with engineering. I mean, what gives, right? Designers are makers too.

Make no mistake, now that I'm here, I don't think it's going to be easy or pretty here. The blatant disregard goes the other way around here. I can't shake the feeling that tech is regarded as second best, that people are cynically passion-impaired, and that good engineering is simply not appreciated outside of a few top shops like Jane St. Most of the startup engineers I meet are strangely risk-averse and used to working for MBAs, practically to the point that they seem defensive when introduced to someone who isn't. Chances are, I will probably end up back in the Valley at some point.

But to think that the Valley is invincible is wrong. The success of Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy and FourSquare are ample cues to the weaknesses of the Valley. These are not edge cases. They are a pattern. And this is fine. I think the two can coexist and learn from each other. If anything, going between the two makes you realize how arrogant each of their cultures are about themselves.

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#32

Post by ig1 »

bcantrill wrote: post #18

In my experience, the only people who weigh in on these debates are those who do not live in Silicon Valley -- like any epicenter for anything, those of us who have made our careers here hardly give a damn how the rest of the world compares themselves to us. (Or to put this another way: New Yorkers do not sit around debating if or that New York is the world's epicenter for finance.) But as someone who has grown sligh…

>New Yorkers do not sit around debating if or that New York is the world's epicenter for finance.

It's actually been a constant debate over the last decade since SOX came in and scared away all the international companies from listing in NY.

NY is now second in the Global Financial Centres index:

http://zyen.com/PDF/GFCI%2010.pdf

(Although NY / London / HK are all practically neck-to-neck)

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#33

Post by llambda »

jeremyrwelch wrote: post #19
bcantrill wrote: post #18

In my experience, the only people who weigh in on these debates are those who do not live in Silicon Valley -- like any epicenter for anything, those of us who have made our careers here hardly give a damn how the rest of the world compares themselves to us. (Or to put this another way: New Yorkers do not sit around debating if or that New York is the world's epicenter for finance.) But as someone who has grown sligh…

The question at hand is not "Does NYC compare to the valley," but instead "is the NYC tech boom sustainable." NYC tech sustainable? Yes. NYC = SV? No. And that's a good thing. Also, Appnexus is a cloud company.

Actually that wasn't the question pg asked. He asked if NYC would ever surpass the valley and concluded that, among many reasons, the fact of NYC as a finance hub could create enough competition for devs that it might actually prevent NYC from ever surpassing the valley, i.e. there might not be enough focus on start-ups for start-ups to win.

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#34

Post by EastCoastLA »

After being one of the 800 people in the room last night, I found it exhilarating that so many locals were interested in developing start-ups. What was some type of founder "dating". I was interested in healthcare and technology and randomly found a few individuals last night in the crowd. That random start-up up luck is what PG spoke of last night and was created artificially at the YCNYC last night. It happens all the time "in the wild" in Silicon Valley, as a by product of the culture. What we needed is similar type events and culture change in NYC to make such events more accessible and common place.

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#35

Post by EastCoastLA »

Will they post a list of all the attendees from last nights event in some type of directory?

I know the whiteboard was posted before the event, but many people I meet last night did not fill it out and did not know about it.

#ycnyc Growing list of attendees: http://123.writeboard.com/wtbsn341igep2zvx - Pwd: Second full word of invitation e-mail and sender first name. lcase/nospace

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#36

Post by [deleted] »

jbooth wrote: post #14
tryitnow wrote: post #4

I think the negatives Graham cites outweigh the positives. Ultimately, "nerdy visionaries" win out over "rapacious dealmakers." The culture is just too different and I just don't mean the business culture. It's reflected in all walks of life. For example, let's take dating. In NYC if you're not making money or on the very fast track to doing so then you might as well not exist. In my experience dating in the Bay Area…

As far as culture, NYC's the most entrepreneurial place in the country, period. Half of the stuff I buy comes from a small business, whereas most of the country is buying from big box stores, chain restaurants, etc. Every cab driver, coffee stand and hot dog stand is a small business. And as far as dating, man, half of brooklyn is underemployed with a band and a startup idea. Just get some flannel shirts and jean-sho…

[deleted]

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#37

Post by rockarage »

jbooth wrote: post #14
tryitnow wrote: post #4

I think the negatives Graham cites outweigh the positives. Ultimately, "nerdy visionaries" win out over "rapacious dealmakers." The culture is just too different and I just don't mean the business culture. It's reflected in all walks of life. For example, let's take dating. In NYC if you're not making money or on the very fast track to doing so then you might as well not exist. In my experience dating in the Bay Area…

As far as culture, NYC's the most entrepreneurial place in the country, period. Half of the stuff I buy comes from a small business, whereas most of the country is buying from big box stores, chain restaurants, etc. Every cab driver, coffee stand and hot dog stand is a small business. And as far as dating, man, half of brooklyn is underemployed with a band and a startup idea. Just get some flannel shirts and jean-sho…

" half of brooklyn is underemployed with a band and a startup idea "

I voted this up just for that, I'm part of that crowd, people outside of NYC don't know how true this is, awesome.

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#38

Post by rockarage »

grimtrigger wrote: post #17

After the talk, I had a lot of time to meditate about this on the train back home. Yes, I think it'll happen, but it won't look anything like the valley. When I was aiming at a finance job, I had two recruiters from two separate banks tell me one of the qualities they look for is an entrepreneurial spirit. Of course, they want you to be entrepreneurial with other peoples money and forfeit the reward to your employer.…

The kids behind Diaspora are NYU students. There is a lot of people working on startups in NYC.

https://joindiaspora.com/

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#39

Post by gyardley »

mdda wrote: post #5

What NYC needs is a few local cash-outs for entrepreneurs (without them having to move to SV to do so). And then those entrepreneurs to reinvest in local startups. That's the positive reinforcement loop that takes place in SV, and I think that it's required for lift-off to be achieved. As an aside, the UK suffers the same problem : There's a ton of money in London (similar to NYC) chasing financial opportunities, but…

Not sure why the comment underneath this one was killed, but there's been a lot of large exits in the advertising space, and the people have gone on to invest in additional startups.

A case in point: I worked for Right Media, and then left after its acquisition by Yahoo to found a company that took angel money from (among others) the former CEOs of Quigo and TACODA.

HN just has a curious blind spot when it comes to advertising technology, which is something NYC does quite well.

Re: Is New York's Tech Boom Sustainable? (PG asks)

#40

Post by sunchild »

bcantrill wrote: post #18

In my experience, the only people who weigh in on these debates are those who do not live in Silicon Valley -- like any epicenter for anything, those of us who have made our careers here hardly give a damn how the rest of the world compares themselves to us. (Or to put this another way: New Yorkers do not sit around debating if or that New York is the world's epicenter for finance.) But as someone who has grown sligh…

What New York/New Jersey does have is an army of operations staff capable of building and maintaining some of the most hardened data centers and networks in the world. In many ways, New York is still stuck in "enterprise" mode. That needs to change before New York is really incubating local startups.
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