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Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

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Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#61

Post by [deleted] »

gnaritas wrote: post #4
staunch wrote: post #2

It's probably the most damning and valid critique of The Valley. How many Twitters/Facebooks/Dropboxes/Airbnbs don't exist because the founders sold them for $15M in 18 months? Sometimes it's because the founders aren't really passionate enough about what they're working on. Other times it's just financially insane to say no. A great example is Mint.com. How do you tell Aaron Patzer not to sell, when he's going to ma…

> How many Twitters/Facebooks/Dropboxes/Airbnbs don't exist because the founders sold them for $15M in 18 months? If the founders exited with the cash they were looking for, so what? > How do you tell Aaron Patzer not to sell, when he's going to make $40M personally? You don't, and why should you? > That's more than he might have made in an IPO after years more work. Who care about an IPO? If you can cash out before…

[deleted]

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#62

Post by rythie »

staunch wrote: post #2

It's probably the most damning and valid critique of The Valley. How many Twitters/Facebooks/Dropboxes/Airbnbs don't exist because the founders sold them for $15M in 18 months? Sometimes it's because the founders aren't really passionate enough about what they're working on. Other times it's just financially insane to say no. A great example is Mint.com. How do you tell Aaron Patzer not to sell, when he's going to ma…

Founders can sell their shares if they like on secondmarket or as part of a new round of funding. They don't need to sell the company for that.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#63

Post by veyron »

jrockway wrote: post #5

One reason to live in the Valley is the opportunity to exercise outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt 365 days a year. That's why I want to move out there, anyway. Winter is highly overrated.

"exercise outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt 365 days a year" <-- Some people in new York, myself included, do the same thing. Even when it's snowing, most of my friends sport tee shirts and shorts. It's actually more pleasant than the 100+ degree sultry summer weather ...

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#64

Post by socratic »

harryh wrote: post #47
socratic wrote: post #44

I get that it is expensive and challenging to keep the best engineers in Silicon Valley for years at a time. However, it seems really odd to conclude from that that the solution would be to start a consumer web startup in Boston. I can name almost no consumer web startups from the past decade that weren't built in Silicon Valley. Stack Overflow? MySpace? Some fashion startups in NYC? Anything else? For most of its ea…

> I can name almost no consumer web startups from the past decade that weren't built in Silicon Valley foursquare, tumblr, groupon, spotify, meetup, kickstarter

Do those startups have technical or other infrastructure problems that compare to a big Silicon Valley web startup?

(Groupon obviously had to scale sales, but that's not what I mean here.)

Here's tumblr.com vs blogspot.com on Google Trends:

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=tumblr.com%2Cblogspot.co...

Here's foursquare.com vs facebook.com on Google Trends:

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=facebook.com%2Cfoursquar...

Here's etsy.com vs ebay.com (from another comment):

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=ebay.com%2Cetsy.com&...

Here's the other four you list vs facebook.com:

http://trends.google.com/websites?q=facebook.com%2Cgroupon.c...

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#65

Post by rdl »

Jkelly555 wrote: post #32

Also for non-web companies, I think it's better to be outside the valley -- it's just such an echo chamber there. We're doing a biotech startup and I think locating in Boston was the right choice.

I thought Boston was the Silicon Valley of biotech; i.e. the "echo chamber" or dense ecosystem of entrepreneurs and experts.

Saying you'd put your biotech company in Boston probably supports the "consumer web startup in SFBA" argument.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#66

Post by rdl »

harryh wrote: post #47
socratic wrote: post #44

I get that it is expensive and challenging to keep the best engineers in Silicon Valley for years at a time. However, it seems really odd to conclude from that that the solution would be to start a consumer web startup in Boston. I can name almost no consumer web startups from the past decade that weren't built in Silicon Valley. Stack Overflow? MySpace? Some fashion startups in NYC? Anything else? For most of its ea…

> I can name almost no consumer web startups from the past decade that weren't built in Silicon Valley foursquare, tumblr, groupon, spotify, meetup, kickstarter

Plus basically all the Chinese startups. Some of them have huge scale issues, too.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#67

Post by bialecki »

Jarred wrote: post #60
rsingel wrote: post #57

Zuckerberg's answers were really bizarre (though I appreciate what he was saying about Silicon Valley, which is a reaction to his belief there are too many tech employees who don't commit to a long term vision.) But bizarrely, he said 1) he had no intention of forming a company when he came to Silicon Valley, even though, 1) they brought interns and 2) had already incorporated badly. Even more odd was his assertion h…

He also said that there was no drinking. This video shows the opposite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--APdD6vejI

He said there was no drinking during the programming contest to choose interns, unlike what they depicted in the movie.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#68

Post by stanleydrew »

veyron wrote: post #63
jrockway wrote: post #5

One reason to live in the Valley is the opportunity to exercise outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt 365 days a year. That's why I want to move out there, anyway. Winter is highly overrated.

"exercise outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt 365 days a year" <-- Some people in new York, myself included, do the same thing. Even when it's snowing, most of my friends sport tee shirts and shorts. It's actually more pleasant than the 100+ degree sultry summer weather ...

It's actually more pleasant than the 100+ degree sultry summer weather ...

Northern California doesn't have that problem either.

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#69

Post by Jarred »

bialecki wrote: post #67
Jarred wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also said that there was no drinking. This video shows the opposite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--APdD6vejI

He said there was no drinking during the programming contest to choose interns, unlike what they depicted in the movie.

Oh that makes sense

Re: Zuckerberg: If I Were Starting A Company Now, I Would Have Stayed In Boston

#70

Post by veyron »

stanleydrew wrote: post #68
veyron wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"exercise outdoors in shorts and a t-shirt 365 days a year" <-- Some people in new York, myself included, do the same thing. Even when it's snowing, most of my friends sport tee shirts and shorts. It's actually more pleasant than the 100+ degree sultry summer weather ...

It's actually more pleasant than the 100+ degree sultry summer weather ... Northern California doesn't have that problem either.

stupid question: what is considered "silicon valley"? Is it in northern or southern california? (I was under the impression that it was southern california)
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