Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, Austin's summers are brutal. Lots of people live in northern states where it snows. You get used to it. I would not in general make a decision about a job based on the weather.
Why not? Why would anyone not consider climate when deciding on a place they'll be living?
The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
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Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? Why would anyone not consider climate when deciding on a place they'll be living?
Climate and geography are basically my number 2 and 3 for deciding on where to live, because I like to spend time outside. Number 1 is obviously security of shelter and other resources, including income to procure them.
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Climate and geography are basically my number 2 and 3 for deciding on where to live, because I like to spend time outside. Number 1 is obviously security of shelter and other resources, including income to procure them.
Well, you may not want to live in Chicago for other reasons. (It wouldn't be my first choice.) But you certainly can have cities with snow that have a lot of recreational opportunities like in New England, Colorado, etc. But that may just be me accustomed to the fact that it will be cold and snowy at certain times of the year so I need to dress properly and have the right equipment to go out.
I also disliked having to deal with freezing temperatures and what the freeze/melt cycles do to basically every material, as well as road/sidewalk treatments like salt and other chlorides.
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#94There are few reasons why Silicon Valley is successful: 1) weather (no tornados, no super humid days, no snow) 2) proximity of great places (Lake Tahoe, Monterey, Napa valley, …) 3) good universities (Berkeley, standford, UCSF, …) 4) immigrants (especially south asian) are more welcome 5) big companies like Salesforce, Google, Facebook, etc. 6) support network: it is ok to be poor entrepreneur and hassle even you are…
For all the soul-searching about why Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley, the overwhelming reason is because once you have a successful base for an up and coming industry, you will win by default moving forward. Once Silicon Valley became the initial bed for tech, tech talent moved there for the jobs, and new tech companies move their to follow the tech talent. Its a virtuous (or vicious for everyone else) cycle. That's it. Virtually every other reason is looking for patterns where non-exists.
The weather certainly helps, but I feel like that is more of a post-fact justification than an actual cause. People want to tell themselves that paying out the nose for a closet with 4 roommates in San Francisco is worth it because the rest of the US is a hellscape with weather unfit for human life. It's not, and with climate change, the California weather is becoming less and less attractive.
There may never be an "next" Silicon Valley other that Silicon Valley. But it won't be for any reason other than being a Mecca for an industry is reason enough to sustain itself.
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#95There are few reasons why Silicon Valley is successful: 1) weather (no tornados, no super humid days, no snow) 2) proximity of great places (Lake Tahoe, Monterey, Napa valley, …) 3) good universities (Berkeley, standford, UCSF, …) 4) immigrants (especially south asian) are more welcome 5) big companies like Salesforce, Google, Facebook, etc. 6) support network: it is ok to be poor entrepreneur and hassle even you are…
It's basically 1 and 5. Plenty of places have 2, 3, 4 (despite what people on the West coast tell themselves), and I'm not even sure what 6 is supposed to mean. For all the soul-searching about why Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley, the overwhelming reason is because once you have a successful base for an up and coming industry, you will win by default moving forward. Once Silicon Valley became the initial bed for…
Im just trying expland my views and maybe visit them.
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#96You need colleges. You want the next Silicon Valley, pump money into the CS programs of area colleges.
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know that those two universities don't get a lot of respect. I have always heard good things about them, here in my elite coastal bubble. As a counterexample, MIT is not in NYC or SF, and it gets respect. For the universities you mention, maybe the (perceived?) sense of lower respect comes from picking up on outsider's suspicions that a Texas university may draw from the state, and thus may have a higher perc…
Boston is an archetype of the "coastal liberal elite" city in the line of NYC or SF, so clearly it gets respect. ;-) > people who put tribe and faith ahead of logic and reason For many things, one man's logic and reason is another's tribe and faith. A red voter type might see blue voter types engage in all sorts of illogical policy behavior that, to the red voter, appears solely grounded in blue tribalism and orthodo…
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
4-5 of the top 20 CS programs are in the Upper Midwest, depending on whether you count Western Pennsylvania (I personally do — politics are solidly Midwest conservative; manufacturing is a major industry; ethnicity is largely German-American rather than British; religion is largely Catholic and mainline Protestant rather than Quaker and Congregationalist; and so on. Pittsburgh looks and feels more like Columbus than…
Pittsburgh politics are not midwest conservative, unless you include the heavy suburban regions which are not where the tech companies are.
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indianapolis is a three hour drive from Chicago which is the third most populous city in the US. Whereas Austin is over 1,000 miles from SF. (Once you're getting in a plane anyway, 1K miles vs. 2K miles doesn't make much of a difference.)
It has brutal winters compared to Austin.
Re: The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland: Steve Case
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it doesn't seem to be keeping a lot of companies and people from heading to Texas, especially Austin.
Austin is relatively close to California. Both Texas and California have huge populations. What does Indiana have?
- Atlanta
- Austin
- Boston
- Chicago
- Cincinnati
- Charlotte
- Dallas
- DC
- Denver
- Houston
- Miami
- Nashville
- NYC
- Philadelphia
- Phoenix
- Pittsburg
- Salt Lake City