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

How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 367 posts

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#341

Post by MicroBerto »

eloisant wrote: post #311
MicroBerto wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need access to so much money that you can't get it in Pittsburgh or remotely? Seems like an insanely cheap place to bootstrap. Get to break even far faster, etc... If you're living in Manhattan now, you could reduce costs by over 75% by moving back and put it into the next venture instead. Plus, the kids get the dog and a yard.

The problem is you'll be putting out a 5 persons team, hope you don't get a Silicon Valley competitor who hires a 50 persons teams and spends ad money with their VC funding.

I guess I forgot that not everyone is doing something because they're passionate about it and are willing to stick it out in the long haul (supposedly that is "tedious" nowadays). They're in it for the fame or "billionaire status" or whatever high hopes they wish to achieve.

But here's what's hilariously ironic for OP: After achieving that mystical billionaire status, what would he likely end up doing?

Serious chance he buys a plot of land outside of Pittsburgh with a dog and yard for his kids and now grandkids. All things he can already afford to do right now!!

Call me old fashioned, but I just don't get the point of that exercise.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#342

Post by tim333 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #301
abalone wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also economic reasons. Parisian density is only possible with a great underground transportation system. That's hugely expensive to build and takes decades. SF has traditionally been a boomtown economy with corresponding bust cycles, so it's harder to make those kinds of investments. They are happening (e.g. the Chinatown extension) but more conservatively.

> Parisian density is only possible with a great underground transportation system. That's hugely expensive to build and takes decades. It takes decades as an artifact of governmental processes. There's no necessary reason it should take decades.

Saigon where I'm back from is building a light rail to the center with twenty odd 30-40 story residential blocks along it. The whole thing is taking about 2 years to build.

That kind of thing is good for preserving historic buildings too - the blocks are all in nondescript areas 1-4 miles from the center.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#343

Post by theandrewbailey »

cfallin wrote: post #55

Pittsburgh has a lot going for it, and it's been really cool seeing the growth since I moved to Pgh in 2009. I think the one thing it might have against it is a growing anti-gentrification/tech movement. It's nothing like throw-rocks-at-busses San Francisco, but you do see things like this graffiti: http://imgur.com/5T0iJQ6 And it's not just the fringe with these views, but (in my experience) reasonable people who ar…

I was under the impression that the Marcellus fracking boom (not tech) drove up prices and scarcity. It's only in the past year or so that I've seen for rent and for sale signs springing up everywhere. Now that fossil fuels collapsed, the housing market pressure is being released.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#344

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

davidw wrote: post #272
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Portland is really missing is a "Northern Oregon University"-a smaller public liberal arts college, along the lines of WOU, etc.

Reed is supposed to be pretty good.

And pretty expensive. A public liberal arts college in PDX is needed.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#345

Post by Balgair »

tirant wrote: post #268
carboncopy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incredibly expensive to build.

It's not. And it is a common practice (or even required) in lots of cities with tight space (e.g. Barcelona).

Yeah, cities that are not in the active earthquake zone lovingly called The Ring of Fire. Remember, the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge cost 1 million per foot of road up to it.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#346

Post by tim333 »

kriro wrote: post #321

It's an interesting article but I feel like the investor/entrepreneur relationship isn't quite as simple. I'd be really interested in a meaningful analysis of why investors cluster in SV. The obvious explanation is because that's where the talent is. However I feel there are a lot of social factors at play, too. It's cool to be in SV, people start companies there and change career path from selling their company to b…

>why investors cluster in SV

A lot comes down to the seed planted when Shockley co-invented the transistor and then moved to be near his mum's place in Palo Alto. The whole thing went from there. The 'traitorous eight' left his company and:

> would go on to found other companies after that, including legendary venture firm Kleiner Perkins, AMD and Intel. Over the next 20 years, 65 companies would be started by first or second generation defectors from Shockley Semiconductor Lab, giving it a legitimate claim as the birthplace of the chip industry that gives Silicon Valley its name.

And then the people who made millions/billions from those invest it in new ventures in the tech field they understand. It's pretty hard to reproduce that else where.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#347

Post by sotojuan »

andrewbinstock wrote: post #309
sotojuan wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, what is your definition of a "top university"? Ivy? Great, well-known, research CS university. Think Stanford, Berkeley, etc. In Texas there's UT and to some extent Rice... neither in Dallas.

>In Texas there's UT and to some extent Rice... neither in Dallas. How do you mean "to some extent Rice"? Rice is #18 in the US News ranking of top colleges in the US and has a 17% admission rate--the highest rated univ in Texas. It has a top-notch CS dept, most particularly well known for its compiler research. Disclaimer: I did not attend Rice, but know several people who attended its CS program.

Sorry, I know it's a top school (I lived in Houston) but wasn't sure if it was considered in the same group as UT Austin, MIT, Stanford, etc.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#348

Post by calbear81 »

mooreds wrote: post #312
rmason wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is most definitely a frontier spirit emerging there. I actually thought of Detroit when I was reading PG's essay. The food scene is really exploding with new restaurants opening all the time. http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/dining/restaurant-o... Even month to month when I visit I see the changes. There's getting to be a real cluster of tech people living and working near Grand Circus park.

Anecdata: I have a friend who is from Detroit. A techie, lived in the East coast and works for a company on the west coast. Visits Detroit to see family. He says that the Detroit "rejuvenation" is a complete scam. That all the articles in the press reference the same three or four restaurants. That, yes, there is a nice area in Detroit around what he calls "the green zone" (not sure if that is the accepted term or ju…

There's definitely more restaurants opening up than just the original few and many of them are opening up outside of the downtown core near other blighted areas. There is a positive, optimistic energy and that sometimes comes across as being a little less critical than they should be of new restaurants. For example, they opened up a ramen/noodle joint and the ramen is just terrible but if you read the reviews from locals, you would think that someone took a noodle joint out of Tokyo and plopped it down in the middle of Corktown. The Vietnamese and Middle Eastern food is good though on account of large local communities of those folks.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#349

Post by namlem »

pesenti wrote: post #232
brandonmenc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people in the US still perceived Pittsburgh as a bad place They still do. I'm originally from the area and when I mention this everyone thinks I come from either a Deliverance-like backwoods or a bombed-out Detroit-style factory town. No one takes me seriously when I call it The Paris of Appalachia.

Oh my, never considered Pittsburgh as part of "Appalachia" - I thought that was West Virginia! I guess the US looks at Pittsburgh like Pittsburgh looks at WV...

Appalachia extends all the way into southern NY.

Re: How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

#350

Post by seibelj »

bydo wrote: post #273
seibelj wrote: post #16

Somewhat unrelated, but a lot of people complain about Boston being too expensive, like SF or NYC, but honestly you can live downtown inexpensively if you live in Chinatown, or within subway distance if you live in Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, or Roxbury, which become cheaper (and less safe) in that order. You don't need to live in Cambridge / Somerville / Back Bay / Seaport. If you are seriously considering moving to…

Boston is too expensive. Have you looked at real estate prices in Pittsburgh? You can easily get an apartment in a nice neighborhood for less than a bedroom in Dorchester.

But compared to SF or NYC, it's significantly cheaper, and you can receive a salary close to what is expected in SF or NYC.
Post reply on HN