5 ms·
For all the hype Silicon Valley gets, the companies of the world's 2 richest people are in the Seattle area.
by timothycrosley 10y ago
For all the hype Silicon Valley gets, the companies of the world's 2 richest people are in the Seattle area.
- draw_down 10y agoPeople are usually including Amazon and MS when they use the metonym "Silicon Valley".
- timothycrosley 10y agoReally meant San Fran. An extreme disproportionate amount of investment dollars go there considering just how much value has come out of Seattle with much less starting capital.
- powera 10y agoWasn't Microsoft founded in Albuquerque?
- timothycrosley 10y agoYes, but Bill Gates grew up in and returned to Seattle to build the company up
- mythrwy 10y agoYes. And Bezos is from New Mexico also. Strange because New Mexico consistently ranks near last in quality of life, employment prospects and education.
- astrodust 10y agoNot surprisingly both left New Mexico and set up shop somewhere more civilized.
- wl 10y agoa) "San Fran" is not used by most locals. b) Silicon Valley is 30 miles or so south of San Francisco.
- timothycrosley 10y agoA) I'm not a local. Never claimed to be B) 30 miles makes it part of the same metropolitan area.
- booleandilemma 10y agoSimilar to how the term "Wall Street" isn't limited to the firms physically located on Wall Street in lower Manhattan.
- paulddraper 10y agoI've never heard someone say SV to include Washington. Though now that you mention it, I have heard that commute times around the valley are terrible....
- astrodust 10y agoIt's a long valley!
- merb 10y agocause seattle never sleeps (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108160/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108160/)
- ziszis 10y agoSeattle* is an anomaly. Roughly the 100th city worldwide by size, yet has 2 of the 5 largest companies in the world by market cap. * Technically Seattle metro area
- paulddraper 10y agoI think that's the point....for all the hype SV gets, Seattle should get some too....
- notyourwork 10y agoJudging by rental and house prices in my neighbor I think we get plenty of hype.
- paulddraper 10y agoTurns out reality is more evenly distributed than HN.
- jorblumesea 10y agoHouses are going for 500k+, please, less hype actually. All we want to do is build cool product and enjoy our life. I don't think anyone in Seattle wants the SV arrogance and lifestyle.
- sushisource 10y agoHeh, this is the Seattleite party line. Don't kid yourself into thinking people in Seattle are more humble than the people in SV. They're just not as overt about it. I agree with you that the flashy culture of SV doesn't exist as much here, and that's a good thing, but I'd say Seattleites are some of the most arrogant, standoffish, and surface-polite people I've met anywhere in the world.
- iamacynic 10y agosee: Frasier.
- seizethecheese 10y agoSeattle has one of the lowest amounts of sun per year of all metros in the USA. It selects for those who are serious about work, more than weather.
- verg 10y agoeh. But also filters people who are serious about work but also serious about their mental health. I know myself well enough to know that I am less productive when I don't get sunlight. I suspect many other people are the same.
- seizethecheese 10y agoThe results of Seattle area companies beg to differ. I live in Seattle and I find that if I walk outdoors during the day at least once per day, I'm fine.
- Sorreah 10y agoWhat does mental health of people living there have to do with the success of a few companies? There are successful companies that eat their workers alive, employee happiness isn't related with their success in a lot of cases.
- seizethecheese 10y agoTech companies can only produce what their employees output. If people were so miserable in Seattle there's no way that any company based there would thrive enough to be a top company in the world.
- sswezey 10y agoI used to live in Seattle and that was a major contributing factor that caused me to move to Atlanta.
- astrodust 10y agoSeattle isn't going to suffer a fresh-water shortage any time soon, either.
- haxton 10y agoI think it's moreso the fact that nothing 'new' has really come out of Seattle. Kind of hard to build hype if your two main talking points are 20+ and 40+ year old companies.
- timothycrosley 10y agoWell that's def not true: Tableau, Rover, OfferUp, and countless more http://www.geekwire.com/startup-list/ http://www.geekwire.com/startup-list/ and that's with only 2.61% of venture investment.
- wtf_is_up 10y agoLiterally who
- timothycrosley 10y agoUsername checks out
- larrykubin 10y agoI bought my house through Redfin and I think Twilio and Box originally started in Seattle.
- samfisher83 10y agoOne of the reasons Bezos picked Seattle was due to Microsoft having a lot of software engineers he could get. So MSFT is a big reason that Bezos is in Seattle. Also it was close to one of the biggest book distributors. Amazon was originally a book store.
- HashThis 10y agoThat is the same reason many Seattle startups picked being in Seattle. Software engineers, cost efficient to run a startup (office space), a great startup ecosystem, 2 hours from the valley, and decent ability to raise capital.
- antaviana 10y agoI read somewhere that it was related to tax optimization. That is, if you sell a book from California, you have to apply state tax to California residents (38M) but if you sell it from Washington, you don't. So the fact that Washington had fewer potential customers than California (or New York, where Jeff Bezos was working previously), meant a smaller tax bill for its country-wide customer base.
- gnicholas 10y agoI've heard this also, and it makes sense. Although Amazon is now finally going to charge sales tax everywhere, it undoubtedly helped their growth that they could undercut others in large markets like NY and CA by not charging sales tax. I'm sure this wasn't the only factor, but if it meant a 9% pricing advantage in CA, it could have been a real consideration.
- sjg007 10y agoThey also sold under MSRP since their product was basically virtual (aka just in time).
- ricardo_piano 10y agoIn the book, The Everything Store, the writer tells about Bezos intentions for Washington. It was combination of fewer customers there and a close distance to a large book publisher, there were a few other smaller accompanying reasons like another poster mentioned about msft being in the area as well.
- peterjlee 10y agoIf you count the number of billionaire, Palo Alto alone has 13 billionaires in a town of 66,000 people. It's ranked #25 on the list of cities with most billionaires and Seattle is not even on the list. https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2016/03/09/the-cities-with-the-most-billionaires/#2807a9076191 https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2016/03/09/the-citie...
- zem 10y agoi think (based on the patterns of life/work/commuting around here) that palo alto should not count so much as a town as the rich neighbourhood of the bay area.
- executive 10y agoand Palm Beach has 29 billionaires in a town of 10.5k people.
- perseusprime11 10y agoHow do you get to this data? I would like to see the number of billionaires in my town if at all.
- executive 10y agoForbes & local Palm Beach news: http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/local/island-rich-territory-with-billionaires-town/ZZPiksBYvYPovpbYoeWQQJ/ http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/local/island-rich-ter... Homes in the Bingham / Hunters Island (south of Mar-A-Lago) and Manalapan areas of Palm Beach are some of the most expensive and outrageous in the world. Fun to fly around there on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6676348,-80.0368289,548a,35y,59.01h/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6676348,-80.0368289,548a,35y...