Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

cdixon.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#21

Post by [deleted] »

tomkarlo wrote: post #12
old-gregg wrote: post #8

Great post, as usual. And agree with almost everything except this: > You can rent a decent place in a cool part of town on a typical startup salary. "Decent" and "typical" are open for interpretation, but I can tell that for most interpreters I know the expression above evaluates to False. :)

This... I'm originally from New York, and I know lots of good engineers who grew up there, but quickly realized that you don't make anything more for working in New York versus San Francisco, Austin, or Denver. Yes, you can afford a place in Manhattan on an engineer's salary. But it's going to be too small for a family, and if you want a bigger place you're going to need to do a long commute. Compare that with other…

[deleted]

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#22

Post by jeremymims »

achompas wrote: post #15

Isn't there a question about whether PayPal's employees were great entrepreneurs or if they benefitted from network effects? Anyway, my impression is that the NY startup scene consists of a lot of high-profile startups. Could someone explain to me why these (or any other) startups should aspire to be PayPal-esque, aside from being absurdly successful?

He means that New York needs a PayPal mafia. I think we already got one with DoubleClick which spawned off an incubator that did Gilt Groupe, 10gen, and Business insider so far. The Lerers are doing their part as well to reinvest in New York. But Chris is right that it won't hurt to have a few more. If Gilt Groupe sells or goes public, I expect we'll see this effect.

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#24

Post by look_lookatme »

jamesteow wrote: post #18
tomkarlo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This... I'm originally from New York, and I know lots of good engineers who grew up there, but quickly realized that you don't make anything more for working in New York versus San Francisco, Austin, or Denver. Yes, you can afford a place in Manhattan on an engineer's salary. But it's going to be too small for a family, and if you want a bigger place you're going to need to do a long commute. Compare that with other…

Once you live in Brooklyn, it's possible to go days without having to enter the city. Plenty of awesome neighbourhoods in the BK (Greenpoint, Park Slope, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick, South Slope, DUMBO). I saw a LOT of young professionals with families in DUMBO/Park Slope/Brooklyn Heights. Certainly, if you're intent on living in the city, you'll pay a premium.

Heh, days? If you work from home, try weeks.

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#25

Post by daveambrose »

callmeed wrote: post #16

#4 really surprised me. what's the underlying issue with Internet in NYC?

A few lesons we learned in the last three years: we operated in Dogpatch Labs in union square for the first half of 2010 and the wireless was painfully slow. Some other teams actually brought in their MiFis and we used this to connect to webmail and calendars. Mabe this changed since then.

We then moved to our own office in Chelsea and the Internet is bad here, as we use Verizon's second best connection. Depending upon the location of your office or where you work in manhattan, you may have time warner, verizon, optimum, etc. and high speed Internet is usually a crapshoot.

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#26

Post by tomkarlo »

look_lookatme wrote: post #24
jamesteow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you live in Brooklyn, it's possible to go days without having to enter the city. Plenty of awesome neighbourhoods in the BK (Greenpoint, Park Slope, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick, South Slope, DUMBO). I saw a LOT of young professionals with families in DUMBO/Park Slope/Brooklyn Heights. Certainly, if you're intent on living in the city, you'll pay a premium.

Heh, days? If you work from home, try weeks .

If you're going weeks without going into the city, why not live somewhere else instead of paying still really high rents (and yes, Brooklyn rents are still usually high compared to everywhere else but Manhattan.)

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#27

Post by tomkarlo »

hullo wrote: post #20
tomkarlo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This... I'm originally from New York, and I know lots of good engineers who grew up there, but quickly realized that you don't make anything more for working in New York versus San Francisco, Austin, or Denver. Yes, you can afford a place in Manhattan on an engineer's salary. But it's going to be too small for a family, and if you want a bigger place you're going to need to do a long commute. Compare that with other…

I don't even know where to start here. Leaving aside that a huge chunk of Manhattan has a longer commute to Union Square than even New Jersey, 80% of the city doesn't live in Manhattan. If you fan out to the metro area, Manhattan falls to less than 9%. Do some of those people wake up some mornings wondering "what's the point", sure, but I promise you (or more specifically: other readers who haven't lived here) most d…

Even if you're living in the outer boroughs, or Jersey City, you're still probably paying more for what you get than you would if you lived in just about any other US city. I grew up in NY and lived there for 30 years, and when I look at rents in other cities I'm just dumbfounded how much cheaper it is. I'm in a very nice area of LA (still supposedly top 10 for cost) and I pay about 1/3 of what I would in Manhattan or Brooklyn for an equivalent place - and I commute less than 15 minutes to boot.

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#28

Post by jamesteow »

tomkarlo wrote: post #26
look_lookatme wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, days? If you work from home, try weeks .

If you're going weeks without going into the city, why not live somewhere else instead of paying still really high rents (and yes, Brooklyn rents are still usually high compared to everywhere else but Manhattan.)

Because Brooklyn is awesome.

Great parties, concert venues, cafes, restaurants, parks, bars, and lots and lots of super talented people ranging from musicians in Williamsburg to artists in Bushwick. NYC is more than just Manhattan. It's also easier to bike around.

It's like thinking that the Bay Area is just San Francisco and that there is no reason to live in the BA if you don't go to SF.

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#29

Post by iposbeforehoes »

I currently live in Manhattan, and work for a start up in Manhattan, and I can assure you that it is very possible to live in NYC on a "typical" start up salary.

While I don't know what the true "typical" start up salary in NYC, I'll give you my experience: I interviewed with 7 start ups, and 6 of the 7 were offering a nice chunk of equity and salaries over $100,000. If you can't live in NYC on 100k, you're doing something very wrong.

And, great article!

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

#30

Post by tomkarlo »

jamesteow wrote: post #28
tomkarlo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going weeks without going into the city, why not live somewhere else instead of paying still really high rents (and yes, Brooklyn rents are still usually high compared to everywhere else but Manhattan.)

Because Brooklyn is awesome. Great parties, concert venues, cafes, restaurants, parks, bars, and lots and lots of super talented people ranging from musicians in Williamsburg to artists in Bushwick. NYC is more than just Manhattan. It's also easier to bike around. It's like thinking that the Bay Area is just San Francisco and that there is no reason to live in the BA if you don't go to SF.

I love Brooklyn, but the rents aren't _that_ different from Manhattan if you're in the "hot" areas. Maybe 30% cheaper, but not 70%. Yeah, there are 'low' rents if you're willing to live an hour outside the city, but if you're in Williamsburg or Park Slope, it's not really appreciably cheaper.

And at least for software engineers, you probably _do_ make more in SF than NY, since it's a much more competitive job market for hiring a good software engineer. Just look at the wars that have been going on between FB and Google over hiring top talent. There's still nothing like that in NY.

Post reply on HN