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$1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

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Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#21

Post by rayiner »

the_vincedent wrote: post #18

As a Chicagoan and software engineer, here's my honest opinion of tech in Chicago: it's a sad, sorry place to be right now. I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Chicago and work in Chicago. It's been a roller coaster love-hate relationship for 30 years. There's two major reasons I say it's so sad and sorry: a total lack of experienced, aggressive VC here, and a massive deficit of university-business partnership.…

Trying to make Chicago a "tech hub" sounds about as practical as trying to make San Francisco a commodities/derivatives hub. What's the point? It's not as if tech is going to create jobs for all the struggling folks on the south side--indeed, tech is actively working to put those folks out of work.

Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#23

Post by rhino369 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #15
rhino369 wrote: post #2

If I weren't a risk averse, cowardly lawyer and was planning on starting my own business, I'd go to Chicago. It's a world class city with tons of programmers and engineer. But it's also much cheaper to live in.

Heh, just don't come here looking to start a law practice. Three major law schools plus a couple less-major ones, every one of them churning out way more JDs than the local job market can soak up. I'm pretty sure the acronym now stands for Java Dispenser.

I went to Northwester but fled to DC for a job. I'm all too aware unfortunately.

Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#24

Post by rhino369 »

mathattack wrote: post #3

Chicago's a great city, and I've spent a lot of time there. But.... - It's cold. - The academic environment itself is better in general business. Two top MBA programs, but the best engineering school is far down state. - It has winter. - The ecosystem supports growth, but not hypergrowth. Companies like BaseCRM do well starting there, but move to Silicon Valley when it's time to explode. - Snow without mountains - No…

Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin, Northwestern and to a lesser extent Michigan dump tons of engineers into Chicago.

Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#25

Post by xasos »

_random_ wrote: post #14

It's interesting what would be 80s/90s person assumption? "1.6B in funding! Oh boy, robots, life extension, hover cars!" "Err, no. But you will be targeted with ads about food delivery and HR services much more precisely!"

Sadly, most of the startups are finance/marketing/hr-focused. I haven't seen many other large startups outside that. Ones that come to mind are TempoDB, BellyCard, ShipBob, Raise, ParkWhiz, and SpotHero.

Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#26

Post by xasos »

the_vincedent wrote: post #18

As a Chicagoan and software engineer, here's my honest opinion of tech in Chicago: it's a sad, sorry place to be right now. I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Chicago and work in Chicago. It's been a roller coaster love-hate relationship for 30 years. There's two major reasons I say it's so sad and sorry: a total lack of experienced, aggressive VC here, and a massive deficit of university-business partnership.…

I agree with the statement the most (also a Chicagoan). Chicago isn't a tech hub, and people need to stop saying it is. Why is it that our flagship university (UIUC) sends more people to Silicon Valley/Seattle than Chicago, which is only 2 hours away? They need to focus on bringing in some more mature tech companies (engineering teams, for one), and that can help potentially bring some more startups here.

Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#27

Post by saturdayplace »

the_vincedent wrote: post #18

As a Chicagoan and software engineer, here's my honest opinion of tech in Chicago: it's a sad, sorry place to be right now. I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Chicago and work in Chicago. It's been a roller coaster love-hate relationship for 30 years. There's two major reasons I say it's so sad and sorry: a total lack of experienced, aggressive VC here, and a massive deficit of university-business partnership.…

I thought Adrian Holovaty's take on Chicago's tech scene was really interesting: http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicago-bootstrapping/

Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#28

Post by tedkalaw »

xasos wrote: post #26
the_vincedent wrote: post #18

As a Chicagoan and software engineer, here's my honest opinion of tech in Chicago: it's a sad, sorry place to be right now. I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Chicago and work in Chicago. It's been a roller coaster love-hate relationship for 30 years. There's two major reasons I say it's so sad and sorry: a total lack of experienced, aggressive VC here, and a massive deficit of university-business partnership.…

I agree with the statement the most (also a Chicagoan). Chicago isn't a tech hub, and people need to stop saying it is. Why is it that our flagship university (UIUC) sends more people to Silicon Valley/Seattle than Chicago, which is only 2 hours away? They need to focus on bringing in some more mature tech companies (engineering teams, for one), and that can help potentially bring some more startups here.

There's actually a UIUC alum center in SF - http://www.sfbayillini.org/. The last estimate I heard was that there are somewhere around 40,000-50,000 UIUC graduates in the Bay Area.

I grew up in Chicago, graduated from UIUC, and I live in SF and work in Silicon Valley. When I moved here, I didn't need to make any new friends if I didn't want to - when I got here, my entire friend group and extended UIUC social network was already here. Shit, my girlfriend (also from UIUC) works at a startup in FiDi where both founders are from UIUC and there are many alums.

It's just too damn easy to move here for us.

Re: $1.6B in funding and $7B in exits: Chicago tech just had its best year ever

#29

Post by ChuckMcM »

Zarkonnen wrote: post #22

Is funding and exits how we measure success now?

Do you have an alternative metric? I suppose we could count jobs created. My experience in the Bay Area is that as long as exits >> (funding * 2), it means that there are non-investors making some money and going on to create additional opportunities (sort of the criticality threshold for entrepreneurism).
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