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Here's a Chicago Tribune story about Chicago's startup drain that was on the front page recently: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/globalcity/ct-global-city-t

by Jun8 11y ago

Here's a Chicago Tribune story about Chicago's startup drain that was on the front page recently: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/globalcity/ct-global-city-talent-drain-met-20151023-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/globalcity/ct-global-city... It seems the most important issue is the chicken-and-egg problem: Chicago doesn't have a large magnate company with lots of b/millionaire founders that then fund the ecosystem. Groupon was once thought to be just that company but hasn't turned out good. The other problem seems to be plain and simple: being in the middle of nowhere doesn't help. From the article: "The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign turns out more engineering graduates than any U.S. school except the Georgia Institute of Technology, yet no tech scene has grown around it — or 140 miles north in Chicago. Fewer than half of these engineers remain in the state while 10 to 15 percent have gone to California in each of the past five years" For a young person, there are many more opportunities to do sports (mountain biking, hiking, skiing, kayaking) in other places. As a final point: Chicago, long the city of broad shoulders, is not famous for its counterculture, like Seattle or Portland is, so loses that chance for attracting people, too.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
The only reason I'm still in the Chicago suburbs is because I work for a startup remotely.
klunger 11y ago
Yes yes yes. I am from the Chicago burbs and a UIUC engineering alum ('09). Even though I would have preferred to move back to Chicagoland, there were simply not any relevant/compelling jobs in that area, or really anywhere else in the state. Around graduation, I got offers in several different states and inevitably moved. Most of my classmates - at least the ones who decided to continue with engineering after graduation - did the same. ps - Chicago might not be famous for counter-culture, but it has amazing live comedy and various other fun cultural trends. It is a generally nice place to live and I would have preferred to move back after graduation, if there had been any good work for me there.
- rhino369 11y ago
  I think there is a real opportunity for companies to exploit the talent that is generated from Chicago and nearby universities. Chicago doesn't just have Illinois, but UW Madison, Purdue, UMich, Northwestern, etc. The Midwest is churning out tons of qualified engineers. And the cost and quality of life is dollar for dollar the best in America. Also the engineering culture is more geared to industrial and mature technology companies and less to software. There are ton of engineers doing jobs that are vital but HN would probably consider boring. That might explain why there is less entrepreneurship. Engineers have work experience in and are exposed to industries that don't easily lend themselves to entrepreneurship.
trentmb 11y ago
A related /r/UIUC thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/3qh5ja/dean_cangellaris_responds_to_trib_article_tech/cwffe3g https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/3qh5ja/dean_cangellar...
x0x0 11y ago
Also, the work is bad. I recently took a look chicago's craigslist. One machine learning job. For a company in Berkeley. The majority of java jobs were in CA [1]; of those remaining, perhaps one looked interesting. Rails has a similar story [2]. Indeed has a bit more stuff but the pickings are slim; lots of the jobs for eg rails are attempts at relos elsewhere. Of the jobs actually in Chicago, a common refrain is senior and/or 3-5 years of experience. Experience which seems hard to get in Chicago, so instead of getting people to stay, they need them to move back. [1] http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=java http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=java [2] http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=ruby+on+rails http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=ruby+on+rails [3] https://angel.co/salaries https://angel.co/salaries
shas3 11y ago
It is interesting that you mention Portland there. Portland somehow doesn't seem to have the same serious intellectual culture that you see in the upper midwest (Chicago, Twin Cities, Wisconsin, Michigan). Silicon forest and fledgling start up scene notwithstanding, Portland doesn't have the educational institutions (UIUC, Chicago, Northwestern, U Mich, U Wisc, U Minn are all among the top STEM schools in the country) that the midwest offers. The lack of top universities in Portland is a bigger handicap than the locals would like to admit. It will be interesting to see if there are any long term trends that are likely to change this.
mempko 11y ago
There are some pretty interesting jobs in Chicago. The third largest tech company in Chicago is HERE maps. As someone who has worked there in the past, it has by far the most interesting work in the city. Want to work on massive machine learning systems to process petabytes of data? Want to work on realtime systems for autonomous and connected cars? Like processing 3d LiDAR data? Like graph algorithms? https://company.here.com/here/ https://company.here.com/here/ It isn't a startup though. For startups people can check out http://www.1871.com/ http://www.1871.com/

by Jun8 11y ago

toomuchtodo 11y ago

The only reason I'm still in the Chicago suburbs is because I work for a startup remotely.

klunger 11y ago

Yes yes yes. I am from the Chicago burbs and a UIUC engineering alum ('09). Even though I would have preferred to move back to Chicagoland, there were simply not any relevant/compelling jobs in that area, or really anywhere else in the state. Around graduation, I got offers in several different states and inevitably moved. Most of my classmates - at least the ones who decided to continue with engineering after graduation - did the same. ps - Chicago might not be famous for counter-culture, but it has amazing live comedy and various other fun cultural trends. It is a generally nice place to live and I would have preferred to move back after graduation, if there had been any good work for me there.

rhino369 11y ago
I think there is a real opportunity for companies to exploit the talent that is generated from Chicago and nearby universities. Chicago doesn't just have Illinois, but UW Madison, Purdue, UMich, Northwestern, etc. The Midwest is churning out tons of qualified engineers. And the cost and quality of life is dollar for dollar the best in America. Also the engineering culture is more geared to industrial and mature technology companies and less to software. There are ton of engineers doing jobs that are vital but HN would probably consider boring. That might explain why there is less entrepreneurship. Engineers have work experience in and are exposed to industries that don't easily lend themselves to entrepreneurship.

trentmb 11y ago

A related /r/UIUC thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/3qh5ja/dean_cangellaris_responds_to_trib_article_tech/cwffe3g https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/3qh5ja/dean_cangellar...

x0x0 11y ago

Also, the work is bad. I recently took a look chicago's craigslist. One machine learning job. For a company in Berkeley. The majority of java jobs were in CA [1]; of those remaining, perhaps one looked interesting. Rails has a similar story [2]. Indeed has a bit more stuff but the pickings are slim; lots of the jobs for eg rails are attempts at relos elsewhere. Of the jobs actually in Chicago, a common refrain is senior and/or 3-5 years of experience. Experience which seems hard to get in Chicago, so instead of getting people to stay, they need them to move back. [1] http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=java http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=java [2] http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=ruby+on+rails http://chicago.craigslist.org/search/jjj?query=ruby+on+rails [3] https://angel.co/salaries https://angel.co/salaries

shas3 11y ago

It is interesting that you mention Portland there. Portland somehow doesn't seem to have the same serious intellectual culture that you see in the upper midwest (Chicago, Twin Cities, Wisconsin, Michigan). Silicon forest and fledgling start up scene notwithstanding, Portland doesn't have the educational institutions (UIUC, Chicago, Northwestern, U Mich, U Wisc, U Minn are all among the top STEM schools in the country) that the midwest offers. The lack of top universities in Portland is a bigger handicap than the locals would like to admit. It will be interesting to see if there are any long term trends that are likely to change this.

mempko 11y ago

There are some pretty interesting jobs in Chicago. The third largest tech company in Chicago is HERE maps. As someone who has worked there in the past, it has by far the most interesting work in the city. Want to work on massive machine learning systems to process petabytes of data? Want to work on realtime systems for autonomous and connected cars? Like processing 3d LiDAR data? Like graph algorithms? https://company.here.com/here/ https://company.here.com/here/ It isn't a startup though. For startups people can check out http://www.1871.com/ http://www.1871.com/