11–19 of 19 posts
If you build something great, it doesn't matter where you live.
If it shouldn't matter where you live, why is mexican.vc in silicon valley?
Shouldn't, or doesn't? Because in many if not most fields, great work has not been randomly distributed. There are almost always geographic clusters. If you want to do great work, it really helps to be around other people working on similar things. The hard part is not infrastructure but community. (Which is why we've always paid a lot of attention to community at YC.)
For me, the great thing about the web is that it is geographically agnostic. This allows for building great businesses and communities without the need of geographical proximity. Meeting other like-minded individuals physically is great, sure, but the inability to do so shouldn't be an obstacle that hinders working with them and accomplishing great things together imho.
If it shouldn't matter where you live, why is mexican.vc in silicon valley?
If geography plays no part, then on a per-startup basis, basing in Silicon Valley should not provide a statistically measurable advantage.
Shouldn't, or doesn't? Because in many if not most fields, great work has not been randomly distributed. There are almost always geographic clusters. If you want to do great work, it really helps to be around other people working on similar things. The hard part is not infrastructure but community. (Which is why we've always paid a lot of attention to community at YC.)
Is that virtual proximity enough to build great communities? There's only one way to know, isn't it?
Shouldn't, or doesn't? Because in many if not most fields, great work has not been randomly distributed. There are almost always geographic clusters. If you want to do great work, it really helps to be around other people working on similar things. The hard part is not infrastructure but community. (Which is why we've always paid a lot of attention to community at YC.)
If it shouldn't matter where you live, why is mexican.vc in silicon valley?
Similarly, why do you have to be living in Mexico to apply?
Shouldn't, or doesn't? Because in many if not most fields, great work has not been randomly distributed. There are almost always geographic clusters. If you want to do great work, it really helps to be around other people working on similar things. The hard part is not infrastructure but community. (Which is why we've always paid a lot of attention to community at YC.)
Paul, even though you're more experienced than most of us when it comes to building and maintaining entrepreneurial ecosystems, I do feel that the community part of this equation can be accomplished regardless of geographic issues. For me, the great thing about the web is that it is geographically agnostic. This allows for building great businesses and communities without the need of geographical proximity. Meeting o…
I haven't found that to be entirely true for me as an individual. The closest online friendships I have had typically involved a lot of live chat of some sort -- exchanges basically in real time when we are both online at the same time (whether via a chat system or ongoing email exchange or some such). When I moved from West Coast to East Coast, this damaged some relationships. Moving from night-shift to day-shift had a similar impact. I'm prone to insomnia and have had quite a few relationships with people in distant lands who happened to be online at the same time I was when I was up during night. When I start sleeping better again, it can be hard on the relationship. So while where I live is not the only thing which impacts this, it does have an impact.
I don't think it's just me. I've known a couple of Americans who worked with people in India who either kept odd hours to facilitate that (an entrepreneur/consultant) or routinely had their regular sleep schedule interrupted by middle-of-the-night calls (supervisor at a big company with a team in India).