In Defense of the Midwest • Hacker News Board

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#141

Post by falcolas » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 12:55 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #134

wwweston wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One "smallville" startup I worked for turned about $2M in investment into a $60M sale. How'd Groupon's investors make out on their returns?

Anecdote != data. Look at the overall stats.

Self re-enforcing loop. The investors are in SF/NY because the startups are in SF/NY, because the investors are in SF/NY...

There are plenty of VC funded startups which aren't in SF or NY, and they will have slower burn rates than those who are in SF and NY, simply due to the cost of living.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#142

Post by glesica » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:03 PM UTC

I grew up in the midwest and hope I never have to live there again. But I also hate California (hot, even in winter, way too sunny, smells awful about 80% of the time, probably in part because of the heat). I found that places like Washington, Oregon, and Montana are much more to my liking.

Moral of the story: everyone has different preferences and things they value, so assuming that any particular person would want to live in any particular place is pretty foolish. As a corollary, assuming that anyone talented will want to live in California (because everyone wants to live in California) seems like a pretty bad strategy.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#143

Post by dagw » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:17 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #132

hueving wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe in general is pretty bad for bigotry along different divisions. The stuff people in the UK could get away with saying about immigrants and people in other countries was pretty disgusting. Every country I've spent time in over there (France, UK, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany) seems to have a culture that accepts making blanket offensive statements about people from other countries (or religions in the case of…

I agree that there are some really unpleasant openly racist people in England. Is it as bad as the US? Black americans make up half the US prison population; they're six times more likely to be imprisoned; as of 2001 one in six black men had been incarcerated; http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet Laws are unjustly applied, one example is the rates that black Americans or white Americans are arrested…

Is it as bad as the US? Black americans make up half the US prison population;

Based on the numbers I find the the ratio for blacks in the US is 40-45% prison to population vs 12% general population. In the UK the numbers seem to be about 12-15% prison population vs 2.5% general population.

If you look at Muslims instead of blacks then you'll find similarly lopsided ratios in many European countries. According to some sources as many a 70% of prisoners in France are Muslim (read North African or Turkish in most cases) compared to 10-12% of the general population.

So to answer your question in one word "Yes".

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#144

Post by tragic » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #127

msutherl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artists, musicians, artisans, chefs, writers, cultural institutions, etc. producing new, non-derivative cultural products that address current issues, articulate forward-thinking ideas, or otherwise awaken, expand, deepen, and question our understanding of and relationship with the world and all its myriad facets.

And what important forward thinking ideas have exclusively come from NY recently? Skinny jeans?

This is the problem. GP mentioned London: I live in London. I see a lot of art in London. (I lived in Hackney Wick for a while, which at the time was basically a pile of art studios plonked into rotting industrial estates. There were some, er, very interesting people around.) None of it is particularly path-breaking.

But that's not an issue. Because any fule kno that all cultural production is highly derivative, and innovative only at the margins. GP gripes elsewhere about people ignoring the last 100 years of western art music, but seems to miss the fact that there is no Schoenberg without Brahms, Wagner and Mahler, no Reich without the Early Music revival; and, equally, the fact that not all productions of a given opera are alike. Innovation is possible, and happens, within the standard repertoire; that's one of the happy side effects of playing the same things over and over again.

I have no idea how forward-thinking the opera house(s) of Ohio are, admittedly.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#145

Post by vasilipupkin » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

The reality is, the confluence of factors such as availability of VC capital, proximity of Stanford and weather make Bay Area the best place to be if you are a founder or a very early employee of a startup and you hold a significant stake. If the weather is a big factor for you, then Chicago will never beat Bay Area. But if you are not one of the above, and you don't care about the weather, Chicago beats Bay Area hands down on quality of life, in my opinion

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#146

Post by gradi3nt » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #13

bglazer wrote: post #9

I live in Memphis TN and I've found that comments on HN towards the middle of the US are skewed negative. Perhaps I have a bias for remembering negative comments. Nonetheless, I find this attitude perplexing from the HN crowd. I understand the value of physical proximity to lots of other like minded, smart people. However, I would have thought that the tech crowd would be the first to decry the inefficiencies of havi…

> Every large city (>1M people) will almost certainly have communities of people who share your culture or at least tolerate and support it. That is not enough. There need to be companies willing to hire. Those companies spring around where there is more talent so they don't have to relocate everyone. Where is more talent? Around more companies. It is a feedback loop. Network effect is probably the correct phrase her…

Epic Systems (digital healthcare records) employs 5,000 people just outside Madison, WI. Soon to be 10,000 according to their roadmap. I wouldn't be surprised if other corporations looking to hire gobs of college grads start popping up (or already have popped up) near other small midwest cities.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#147

Post by hugs » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

gowan wrote: post #135

As a californian who recently moved to the midwest (IA) the only thing I really miss is the mountain biking. On the other hand I love the road biking scene in IA.

As a (Southern) Californian who moved to Chicago many years ago, I feel the same away about missing the mountains. (For trail running, not biking, though). If I ever move back to CA, it'll be to Marin County so I can be near all those amazing running trails. The high cost of living there keeps me away, though.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#148

Post by nfriedly » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

As another developer who lives in Ohio, but has taken numerous trips to SF and even lived in the bay area for a year, I agree with everything in this article.

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#149

Post by vasilipupkin » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

godarderik wrote: post #39

This article is particularly relevant to me. I’m originally from a suburb of Cleveland less than half an hour from where the OP works, and I’m currently an undergraduate at Harvard. There are definitely some differences between the areas, and I can’t say that I have the overwhelmingly positive vision of the Midwest that the author of this post has. My feeling is that people in the Midwest are more content with the st…

I think Midwest may be sort of a misnomer term. Chicago is midwest too and it definitely doesn't lack "cultural vibrancy". I think what you are referring to is more small town atmosphere rather than Midwest per se

Re: In Defense of the Midwest

#150

Post by vasilipupkin » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 1:56 PM UTC

fown9 wrote: post #20

In Defense of Silicon Valley 1. World class food. There is no way you can get the same quality of chinese,japanese,korean,indian,french,italian,californian,thai,vietnamese in Cleveland. 2. People creating things in coffeeshops on the weekends, instead of wasting life watching TV or drinking beer. You only get one life in this great country. 3. It's not ice freezing cold 4. It's not superficial (like LA), not money wo…

We should not compare Silicon Valley to Cleveland. Why don't we compare it to Chicago? The reason the Cleveland comparison is somewhat unfair is that Cleveland is a small city, so we are not comparing apples to apples