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A Change of Scenery for Startups
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jt2190 10y agoI've created a thread to discuss the original, much more interesting paper: "How... Startup Economy [Culture] is Spreading Across the [U.S.] — and How It Can Be Accelerated" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14227248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14227248
- aaron-lebo 10y agoWhy not talk about it here? What about the paper stuck out to you?
- grogenaut 10y agoBecause they won't get sub points here only comment points
- ci5er 10y agoWhat's the difference? And why does it matter?
- grogenaut 10y agoWhy are you reading any negative from my comment? None was meant.
- devrandomguy 10y agoThe GP's submission history shows no signs of point-whoring. This was his first submission in nearly a year.
- jt2190 10y agoI didn't want to hijack this comment thread. The paper title essentially sums up what is interesting: The idea that the culture of startups (build fast, test assumptions, iterate, etc.) is starting to make it's way outside of tech centers, with great benefit.
- walshemj 10y agoSome of the very early web projects 94/95 at british telecom where like this :-)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jlarocco 10y agoIt can't happen fast enough, IMO. The mono-culture around Silicon Valley and startups could really use some fresh viewpoints and new ideas.
- walshemj 10y agoFor example?
- trustfundbaby 10y agoThat you don't always have to raise shittons of Cash to "do" a startup, or that you should have to show a path to profitability early on to get funding ... for example
- danielrhodes 10y agoThat makes no sense. You raise money to explore new markets and not worry about profitability right away, but instead focus on growth. But if your unit economics are not good and will never be good, why would anybody want to invest?
- walshemj 10y agoHow is that a "monoculture"? and these days you have to raise far lass cash than back say in 2000
- jlarocco 10y agoWhat do you need an example of? Mono-culture in SV is well known. First, it's simply not possible for poor and middle class people to live there and have any kind of normal life. Second, it's well known (often reported by the companies themselves) that most SV tech companies are dis-proportionally made up of white (and some asian) men. The mono-culture often makes SV look out of touch with reality. Products like Juicero and Soylent, come to mind. The way Uber has handled sexual harassment claims, is another example. There are examples all over the place.
- warcher 10y agoA startup theme that I'm seeing more and more often is domestic outsourcing, where the executive/biz-side team is in SF and the engineering team is someplace more economical, but still in the states. A tougher lift for sure, but you could potentially get the best of both worlds-- SF connections and cheaper labor elsewhere.
- jlarocco 10y agoIt's strange that so few startups have tackled the problem of remote working. For software development, especially, there's really no reason a whole company couldn't be entirely "remote", except that the tooling around it isn't very good.
- user5994461 10y agoSoftware development for large enough projects is all about communication. A full remote team has a big handicap on that.
- jlarocco 10y agoI don't think that's it, really. Email, chat, project management, source code hosting, video conferencing, phone/audio conferencing, etc. are all done on the web or in the cloud or whatever you want to call it. Practically every large open source project is coordinated over the internet with limited face to face time, so the concept works well at some level at least. Given that the model works in theory, it's surprising there aren't many startups trying to go the last mile to make remote working better for a general audience.
- aantix 10y agoLinux kernel, Rails, pretty much any high profile open source project is fully distributed, yet them maintain code quality that is world class relative to most private projects?
- taway_1212 10y ago
- cmahler7 10y agoAs a younger millennial I have no desire to move to silicon valley and I can speak for most of my friends as well. In my opinion silicon valley has lost it's allure and really has no appeal over any other tech hub, and honestly has more negatives due to high cost of living and terrible commute times from what I've heard The only advantage silicon valley has anymore is ready access to money but even that is going away with more VCs paying attention to other areas of the country Silicon Valley has essentially slit its own throat by pricing out young entrepreneurs and adopting a wall st lite culture imo
- ben_jones 10y agoYou'd be surprised. There's a fair bit of nuance to Silicon Valley that gives it an advantage over other hubs. Close to Asia / Asian VC. Engineers from Berkley, Stanford, and the UC system. Local government and finance that is willing to work with tech. Etc.
- nostrademons 10y agoThe big one is a local populace - even the non-technical folks - who is very willing to try out crazy ideas and give them a go, at least once. That's why Silicon Valley has a reputation for crazy nutjobs, but it's also why so many crazy but eventually world-changing ideas start here. Most people here are at least willing to meet for coffee and try out your half-baked app idea, even if they forget about it an hour later. In many other places in the country, you won't even get that far.
- pducks32 10y agoI'm a college student in Silicon Valley who's originally from downtown Chicago. When I moved here it was not the place I expected. Maybe SF is different or Palo Alto but where I am I just see regular families who are struggling to come to terms with how their communities have changed since the 70s. It's not all negative in my experience; many of them are quite proud of the tech companies. But it hurts to see so many people struggling. I saw it in Chicago, but what I see in San Jose is so much worse. I love this Valley but I just wish companies worked a little harder with local governments to brainstorm solutions. It's really unfortunate.
- w1ntermute 10y agoThe companies would love to work with the local governments, but there's not much you can do in the face of NIMBY obstructionism. This article does a great job of covering the challenges in fixing this problem and who's at fault: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/
- sjg007 10y agoPeople need to vote. There's more of us than them.
- philsnow 10y agopeople need to run for local office. if "there's more of us than them", then it should be easy to get sympathetic people into local office and then state office.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mbesto 10y agoI advise a lot of PE investors who buy tech companies that aren't in top tier cities. Most of these companies are based outside of the top tier cities and interestingly all of them actually make money and very profitable. The last 8 cities I've been in where these companies exist: Tampa, Buffalo, Denver, New Orleans, Atlanta, Austin, Knoxville, Birmingham.
- Xcelerate 10y agoCurious, as a Knoxville resident, which companies? (If you're free to say.)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- coredog64 10y agoPetSmart was founded in (and still runs from) Phoenix. What does anything in this story have to do with SV?