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There is a lot of hype around emerging NYC tech scene. And this hype has been growing over the last 6-7 years. However, IMO, this is still a largely empty hype,
by dmode 11y ago
There is a lot of hype around emerging NYC tech scene. And this hype has been growing over the last 6-7 years. However, IMO, this is still a largely empty hype, due to 3 reasons
1. NYC hasn't produced a blockbuster startup, nor is there one in the pipeline. I am talking about tech startups >$50bn in value. The next giants are either in Valley (Uber, Lyft, Airbnb) or in China (Didi, Meuitan, etc) or in India (Ola, Flipkart). There is 1 in LA (Snapchat)
2. NYC tech portfolio is lacking startups in emerging technologies - self driving cars, VR/AR, 3D printing, drones, robotics, space, batteries and charging, energy
3. Lots of high profile failures, but few high profile exits
- lacker 11y agoNone of those startups are >$50bn in value, except Uber.
- rdl 11y agoWould have been valid if he'd said >$5b.
- falcolas 11y agoDo you mean valid as in there are no NY startups at or above that valuation? There are definitely some NY based startups above the $5b mark, though the ones I know of are B2B, not B2C.
- rdl 11y agoWho? Oscar is the biggest one I can think of, and they're <$3b. I'd also bet on at least two of these being >$50b within 3y. {Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Didi, Meuitan, Ola, Flipkart, Snapchat} (Uber already is, so it's really "a second one")
- dmode 11y agoThat's true, but I was commenting on which startups are most likely to be in that level. If we analyze the companies who have reached that kind of valuation they demonstrate some patterns - 1. Mass market product, that most of the planet can use 2. Mobile first 3. High growth opportunity in Asia. That's why there are so many Asian companies that will become internet behemoths. Looking at the NYC startup list - Oscar health, Etsy, Cockroach DB, MongoDB etc. I don't see that pattern emerging. But that's just my assessment
- withdavidli 11y ago$50B as the bar for a blockbuster startup? How did you determine that figure? Tesla is at $32B right now, still not good enough?
- rpgmaker 11y agoApparently not even whatsapp is a "blockbuster startup" either.
- dmode 11y agoSee my response below. I am saying "potential" to be >$50bn. Tesla is in an extremely low margin business compared to software companies. Still, I believe Tesla will break the $50bn valuation. And that will still be 10% of Google.
- ThomPete 11y agoSo WeWork, Kickstarter. Isn't Etzy also from NY and FourSquare? SquareSpace Pretty sure the list is pretty long when all comes to all.
- __derek__ 11y agoTumblr, too.
- throwaway_exer 11y agoTumblr was a week away from missing payroll, so it did not have a business model to support a $1 billion valuation. Yahoo pulled another broadcast.com on that one.
- sre_ops 11y agoBroadcast.com did more for startups tan all other Yahoo's bets combined. That's what created Mark Cuban.
- cli 11y ago$50 billion? Why that number? That seems extraordinarily high. Target has a market value of about $53 billion, and Deutsche Bank $49.7 billion.
- saalweachter 11y agoMonsanto, $42.7 billion.
- vadym909 11y agoI think its fair benchmark. Adobe ($48B) is a relatively successful company of decent size- Not as big as Google and not as small as a borderline unicorn
- dmode 11y agoPotential to be a >$50bn tech company seems to be a pretty generous one to be considered blockbuster. Especially considering the frothy valuation scene. There is no point in comparing with low margin business like Target. Let's look at the biggest tech companies today - Apple (~$600bn), Google (~$500bn), MSFT (~$450bn), Facebook & Amazon (~$250bn), Oracle (~$250bn) so on and so forth. If we are concluding that NYC is catching up to Silicon Valley, then at least one startup needs to demonstrate potential to be worth 10% of Google. That doesn't seem extraordinarily high metric to me.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dipnuggetron 11y agoYou forgot about one Uber sized success story, lovingly born and bred in New York City: Foursquare.
- Gratsby 11y agoI've heard "this is the silicon valley of..." a thousand times when referring to areas with strong tech communities. NY's tech community is probably very impressive compared with most of them. There's nothing actually like Silicon Valley in reality, though. This place is unique. Paris for fashion. New York for...(a lot of things) Hollywood for movies. Dallas for cheerleaders. St. Louis for half a McDonald's sign. Some places will never be duplicated.
- hkmurakami 11y ago>NYC tech portfolio is lacking startups in emerging technologies - self driving cars, VR/AR, 3D printing, drones, robotics, space, batteries and charging, energy Makerbot (3D printing) started in NYC in 2009 and is still there.