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Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

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Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#81

Post by alapshah »

WildUtah wrote: post #55
timsally wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine you're being downvoted by people who don't know what winter in Chicago is like. ^^

My last winter in Illinois there were two weeks where the high temperature never got up as high as -15ºF. Pants freeze to your legs, glasses ice over in seconds, even if you're sufficiently bundled your eyeballs can get frostbite. People underestimate how much nicer the world is away from the Chicago-Boston-DC triangle.

You're memory doesn't seem to go along with facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Chicago#Temperature_...

Seems like the coldest high temperature in Chicago's recorded history was -11ºF

FWIW I've lived in both SF and Chicago and quite like Chicago's climate/seasons and really liked the city life much more than I did in SF (although the stuff a couple hours from SF is fantastic), and I'm not at all alone (I live in NY now)

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#82

Post by alapshah »

jrockway wrote: post #5

One reason to live in the Valley is the opportunity to exercise outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt 365 days a year. That's why I want to move out there, anyway. Winter is highly overrated.

For those who aren't familiar: San Francisco weather sucks, but the valley has great weather. It's weird, but in SF, there are actually relatively few days where you'd want to be outside in shorts and a t-shirt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Climate

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#83

Post by Finbarr »

Having watched the event live in person, I think this point has been taken out of context. Mark's point was that there's no way he could have succeeded with facebook without the valley as he was young and inexperienced, but knowing what he knows now he could have been successful back in Boston.

My interpretation of his comment was that it is easier to be successful through getting noticed in a place where there is less noise from everyone and their dog starting companies, but being in that situation is invaluable if you don't know what you're doing.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#84

Post by code_duck »

socratic wrote: post #64
harryh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can name almost no consumer web startups from the past decade that weren't built in Silicon Valley foursquare, tumblr, groupon, spotify, meetup, kickstarter

Do those startups have technical or other infrastructure problems that compare to a big Silicon Valley web startup? (Groupon obviously had to scale sales, but that's not what I mean here.) Here's tumblr.com vs blogspot.com on Google Trends: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=tumblr.com%2Cblogspot.co... Here's foursquare.com vs facebook.com on Google Trends: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=facebook.com%2Cfoursqua…

There are probably more fair comparisons, as you've chosen the largest websites in the world for the Silicon Valley side.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#85

Post by WildUtah »

alapshah wrote: post #81
WildUtah wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last winter in Illinois there were two weeks where the high temperature never got up as high as -15ºF. Pants freeze to your legs, glasses ice over in seconds, even if you're sufficiently bundled your eyeballs can get frostbite. People underestimate how much nicer the world is away from the Chicago-Boston-DC triangle.

You're memory doesn't seem to go along with facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Chicago#Temperature_... Seems like the coldest high temperature in Chicago's recorded history was -11ºF FWIW I've lived in both SF and Chicago and quite like Chicago's climate/seasons and really liked the city life much more than I did in SF (although the stuff a couple hours from SF is fantastic), and I'm not at all alone (I l…

I was in a small town downstate; the lake can actually moderate temperatures in Chicago proper. Downstate Illinois can have more Fargo or Minneapolis weather. Warms up faster in the spring, though.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#86

Post by mturmon »

veyron wrote: post #70
stanleydrew wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually more pleasant than the 100+ degree sultry summer weather ... Northern California doesn't have that problem either.

stupid question: what is considered "silicon valley"? Is it in northern or southern california? (I was under the impression that it was southern california)

Silicon Valley is certainly not to be confused with southern California.

Southern California should make you think LA. Silicon Valley should make you think SF. (There are loads of other associations, but that pairing shows how far apart they are.) Totally different, or hella different.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#87

Post by HSO »

nhangen wrote: post #8

I saw the talk, and felt his point was hypocritical. He said that FB couldn't have made it outside of the valley, but that knowing what he knows now, it probably could were he starting it today. In other words, he needed the valley when he was young and inexperienced, but it's not necessary if you have the experience and connections already. [Edit: The reason I'm saying it's hypocritical is because his point was init…

I think you're looking for a different word here. Hypocritical, according to my dictionary, means "behaving in a way that suggests one has higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case".

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#88

Post by kalleboo »

staunch wrote: post #6
gnaritas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many Twitters/Facebooks/Dropboxes/Airbnbs don't exist because the founders sold them for $15M in 18 months? If the founders exited with the cash they were looking for, so what? > How do you tell Aaron Patzer not to sell, when he's going to make $40M personally? You don't, and why should you? > That's more than he might have made in an IPO after years more work. Who care about an IPO? If you can cash out before…

The world is better off when companies like Dropbox exist as large transformational forces of technology progress. If they all get strangled in their crib's progress slows. Imagine if Yahoo hadn't flubbed the acquisition of Google? We'd all be worse off.

> Imagine if Yahoo hadn't flubbed the acquisition of Google? We'd all be worse off.

It goes both ways. Imagine if Google hadn't bought Android? We'd all be worse off.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#89

Post by mrmasa »

My biggest concerns on this article is "He explained that he had a conversation once with Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos about this, and the average time someone stays in job at Seattle is twice as long than it is in Silicon Valley. "

Could we say "higher liquidity in labor markets empowers disruptive innovation" or "disruptive innovation needs higher fluid labor markets."? If someone knows the report about this issue, please share with us.

Actually, the labor market in Japan is very lower liquidity. The reasons will be that most Japanese prefers stability in their life, and that recruiters in big firms prefer lower number of career changes in a specific period, 5 or 10 years. Concurrently, we have experienced social slumber, so-called "Lost Decade".

But, for reference, here is the interesting point about Japan History.

When we experience drastic social change, such as The Meiji Restoration and The Defeat in WW2, most Japanese suddenly abandons the preference for stability and drastically drives themselves to creative destruction. Sony and Honda were born right after WW2.

3.11 Tohoku Earthquake might have been a good trigger for drastic social change in Japan.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#90

Post by zackattack »

iradik wrote: post #29

I think he was just being off-the-cuff and flippant like a conversationalist. It wasn't some big statement. The q&a format lends itself to this style. He also said he hadn't really thought about it much.

I agree. I also think he was trolling. Though he may have used it as an opportunity to set social pressure against people leaving Facebook.
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