Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover • Hacker News Board

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#141

Post by dmode » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 6:31 AM UTC

z1mm32m4n wrote: post #59

bane wrote: post #48

Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning side of a fist fight, but it has lots going for it: - Two big, well funded, well respected schools cranking out talent. CMU is one of the top schools in the world for CS. - Cheap rent - If you want to buy a house, some really beautiful neighborhoods - SEI - lots of cyber security talent - Great food and activities, it's not hard to find plen…

> Some parts of the city are really beautiful and nice places to be, lots of great parks and so on It's hard to understate this point. Compared with San Francisco, Pittsburgh is much more visibly green. There are trees everywhere, grassy areas abound, and the city itself is nestled in green hills. San Francisco is full of concrete. The Bay Area is still really brown from the recent droughts. There are certainly peopl…

San Francisco has an ocean and a bay though.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#142

Post by dmode » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 6:34 AM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #110

theYipster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long found a third drawback, which may be linked to the access to capital issue, is Pittsburgh's geographical isolation compared to the Bay Area and other tech hot spots. There's no major international air hub (anymore) and flights even to nearby cities such as NY, DC, and Philly are relatively pricey with limited schedules. There's no meaningful international service either anymore. This is in comparison to SFO…

I realize this is off-topic, but I'm somewhat surprised by the consistent use of the Austin metro as an example of a "tech hub" in comments here, when a metro area in its own state (Dallas) had raised more in venture capital as recently as 2016. [1] Austin is certainly shifting their economy to be tech-dominant, but it's still a small economy relative to other US cities. What makes Austin a more important tech hub th…

Austin is overhyped. There are cities in East Bay that nobody knows of (e.g., Emeryville) that have raised more money than Austin.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#143

Post by dmode » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 6:34 AM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #110

theYipster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long found a third drawback, which may be linked to the access to capital issue, is Pittsburgh's geographical isolation compared to the Bay Area and other tech hot spots. There's no major international air hub (anymore) and flights even to nearby cities such as NY, DC, and Philly are relatively pricey with limited schedules. There's no meaningful international service either anymore. This is in comparison to SFO…

I realize this is off-topic, but I'm somewhat surprised by the consistent use of the Austin metro as an example of a "tech hub" in comments here, when a metro area in its own state (Dallas) had raised more in venture capital as recently as 2016. [1] Austin is certainly shifting their economy to be tech-dominant, but it's still a small economy relative to other US cities. What makes Austin a more important tech hub th…

Austin is overhyped. There are cities in East Bay that nobody knows of (e.g., Emeryville) that have raised more money than Austin.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#144

Post by dmode » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

It seems to me that there is an article like this for every city in America and abroad these days. Is Pittsburg really that hot ? The numbers I could find for 2015 was that Pittsburg attracted $437mn in VC dollars, while the Bay Area attracted somewhere around $27bn.

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-news/2015/03/19/Ve...

That is a 50x difference.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#145

Post by joehosteny » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 12:54 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #9

pesenti wrote: post #8

I lived in Pittsburgh for 17 years. I bootstrapped a company out of CMU, grew it to $25M/year in revenue and sold it to IBM. Pittsburgh is a great place to start a company, lots of tech talent, lots of support and exposure in the community, cheap rent. And it is today a much more enjoyable place to live than 20 years ago (great restaurant scene, bike paths, revitalized downtown). There are two big drawbacks: finding…

> It's just really hard to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh. I'm an angel investor in a few dozen tech startups, about half in the Bay Area and half spread elsewhere around the country. The biggest problem with those outside of the Bay Area is that for lack of a better term "they don't think big enough". A lot of the promising ones turn into lifestyle-type businesses (e.g. a focus on services revenue in…

I understand your position, but I think these companies do exist here. I know, because I've been at a few of them (Avere Systems and Bossa Nova Robotics, for example). I think our biggest challenge is getting sufficient capital in the region. The airport situation has been a serious impediment - great airport, few direct flights to the west coast - but that is changing.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#146

Post by joehosteny » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 1:00 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #58

ta201707 wrote: post #36

Last year I was going through a long and grueling job search after taking time off for family reasons. I was based in the midwest after living around the country over the past decade for my recent three jobs. It was the first time I felt totally untethered and able to look at any US locations for a new job. I work in scientific computing and machine learning, so there were various employment hubs to consider. Knowing…

i grew up in pittsburgh, and had to leave because there simply wasn't a job for me - (most of the cmu startups threw my resume in the trash as soon as it wasn't cmu) though that was a long time ago and things have changed. however, the numbers still show slim pickings. search glass door or any job posting website, you will find that philadelphia (not a tech city) has ~5x the amount of positions available. NYC has 15x…

Parking downtown is bad, but I'd be curious what cities you are comparing it to with respect to traffic. I grew up in Chicago and lived in the Bay Area for a few years, and those are both far worse. A lot of the newer tech jobs are fairly close to downtown, the strip or the east end (both my wife and I are able to walk to work almost every day).

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#147

Post by smoorman1024 » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 1:10 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #86

bane wrote: post #48

Pittsburgh is a great town. It looks a bit like it was on the barely winning side of a fist fight, but it has lots going for it: - Two big, well funded, well respected schools cranking out talent. CMU is one of the top schools in the world for CS. - Cheap rent - If you want to buy a house, some really beautiful neighborhoods - SEI - lots of cyber security talent - Great food and activities, it's not hard to find plen…

Won't cheap rent go away as soon as any substantial number of programmers move in?

The population of Pittsburgh City proper peaked in the 1950's. It then depopulated significantly as people left the region and the city center. There is an abundance of extra housing at a reasonable rate close to the city center because of this excess supply. It used to house 650k people and currently only holds 300k. It won't last forever but by no means is it on the verge of becoming an expensive city.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+pittsburg...

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#148

Post by hessproject » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

dmode wrote: post #144

It seems to me that there is an article like this for every city in America and abroad these days. Is Pittsburg really that hot ? The numbers I could find for 2015 was that Pittsburg attracted $437mn in VC dollars, while the Bay Area attracted somewhere around $27bn. http://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-news/2015/03/19/Ve... That is a 50x difference.

Remember that Pittsburgh only has a population of 300k. Obviously the Bay Area has a more bustling tech market, but for such a small market Pittsburgh (with an h) is doing pretty well, especially when you factor in how badly it was hit when the steel mills closed

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#149

Post by Kihashi » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 2:23 PM UTC

blackguardx wrote: post #71

moultano wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case Western has to step up its game.

As a CWRU grad, I don't really see what power they have fix Cleveland's problems. One of them is due to the high levels segregation (both wealth and race) and sprawl due to white flight from the inner city. This is slowly changing as Cleveland tries to revitalize the downtown, but I'm not sure there are any good plans to help out extremely poor areas such as East Cleveland.

> I'm not sure there are any good plans to help out extremely poor areas such as East Cleveland.

I'm not sure this is necessarily helping, but there was a plan to have Cleveland annex East Cleveland. The East Cleveland City Council basically nuked it and then recalled their mayor who had proposed it, IIRC.

Re: Pittsburgh Gets a Tech Makeover

#150

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 2:42 PM UTC

thesmallestcat wrote: post #61

javra wrote: post #50

Wow, this article really doesn't even at least mention some of the problems this new boom bring. Maybe ask long time residents of neighborhoods like East Liberty, Bloomfield, or Lawrenceville how happy they are that they got driven out by rising rents due to rich techies? The "revitalization" of Pittsburgh might benefit some, most of them relatively new to the city, but gentrification will hurt lots of its populace w…

What I don't understand is why so many young tech dude(tte)s seem incapable of integrating. Any place that experiences a tech boom will also experience a boom in luxury apartments, $10+ cocktails, tapas bars, on demand laundry and so on. This can't help but to displace the old way of living in an area, even if it does bring jobs. Is it so terrible to find, vet, and rent a normal apartment, do your own chores, and eat…

Considering no one is forcing people to spend their money on tapas bars or $10 cocktails, maybe it is terrible. The old delis/sandwich shops/diners/grocery stores have bad product and bad service, otherwise people would go there. Why would you not want a Trader Joe's, where you can find products of much higher quality, than a corner store bodega type place where there is no quality control or accountability? Why go to a deli when you can go somewhere with various options and spices than instead of just meat and bread?