12 ms·
> Boulder, CO I don't know, that place has actually tracked SV in a lot of ways, from a good university, to a concentration of smart people, to some good VC's,
by davidw 9y ago
> Boulder, CO
I don't know, that place has actually tracked SV in a lot of ways, from a good university, to a concentration of smart people, to some good VC's, to being a nice place, to ... rampant NIMBYism that has driven housing prices up to nearly 700K (Zillow).
- pdeuchler 9y agoAs a Boulderite I take offense to that last part... the average house here is actually over a million dollars thank you very much
- atcole 9y agoThank you. I'm glad someone corrected this man's outrageous claim that we would let anyone in for less than 9 bags.
- pdeuchler 9y agoTell me about it... I'm sick and tired of the trope that Boulder is just white people from the coasts when it's actually wealthy people from the coasts, and Wisconsin.
- ianai 9y agoYou know what's funny? Six or seven hours south is Santa Fe/Albuquerque NM. Both have nearby national laboratories, colleges, and (some) technical businesses. They're also generally affordable. Pretty much anywhere in NM would just kill for more business and has some technical workforce. I'm also sure it'd be relatively easy to convince people to move there.
- jharger 9y agoNot only is it a nice and inexpensive place to live, but the traffic situation is cake. A very bad day is a 45 minute commute. (ABQ resident here)
- davidw 9y agoWe ended up in Bend, Oregon rather than Boulder and are happy. Prices are lower (for now) and traffic is nonexistant IMO. But there's something wrong with the development patterns in much of the US that means those things will get worse over time unless we do things differently.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoSeconded. But the big problem with NM is there's no first-world healthcare here, which makes it a tough place to live if you're older. Okay that's an exaggeration. There is good healthcare but not nearly enough for the population since doctors and nurses can make a lot more $$ elsewhere. So getting a PCP is very hard, ordinary appointments take weeks, and specialist appointments take months.
- ianai 9y agoWhat's weird about that is UNM has a research hospital.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoUNM also has a Level 1 trauma center and a world-class cancer center. But ordinary routine medicine is hard to come by in the state.
- ahmadss 9y agoI have a few questions about the ABQ area. How can I get in touch with you? Alternatively, mind emailing me? <hnusername> @ gmail
- ianai 9y agoI emailed you.
- Balgair 9y agoI have a brother that lived in Los Alomos, the National Labs are no where even close to Santa Fe or Albuquerque and the Universities there are not comparable to CU. When the Lobos join the Pac-12, that's a good way to know that they are comparable. Housing in Santa Fe is not exactly cheap either. Also, NM is an acquired taste and is not for everyone. The labs were kinda put there because of the remoteness of the place. I mean, Los Alomos is at about 7500 feet, 2 beers and you are knackered. That said, I do love NM and it's wilderness; I'll take my enchilada Christmas style ;)
- jldugger 9y ago> When the Lobos join the Pac-12 Your metric of comparison is a sports conference?
- ianai 9y agoS/He didn't even spell Los Alamos correctly. Pretty offensive all around, really.
- Balgair 9y agoSports teams seem to correlate pretty well with donor funding, grant funding, and general population. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it's not a bad metric
- ianai 9y agoYou might as well just say the city's not large enough for startup funding.
- vec 9y agoTwo years ago I moved from Albuquerque to Denver, explicitly for work related reasons. The difference in available engineering jobs is night and day. ABQ is a starkly beautiful midsize city with an unusually high number of nuclear physicists. That's necessary but far from sufficient for being a tech center. And as far as I could tell, the city's ideal is for a relatively small number of relatively large employers, not in hundreds of 5-20 employee firms. Besides, if you're interested in working for one of those firms, let alone starting one, Denver's only six or seven hours north.
- ianai 9y agoThat's why I think Abq could be a budding tech hub with relatively few changes. There are some phds in the neighborhood and at least one good, affordable engineering college (Socorro/NMT). I'm guessing it's governmental policies (or lack of tax incentives) and a lack of at least one tech billionaire that likes the place keeping it down. I mention that last part as I think Zappos being in LV has pulled some tech interest into LV.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoAlbuquerque does have reasonably good Internet infrastructure and the cost of living is low. But most of the tech employers are government contractors that require a security clearance, which is a turnoff for some. (If you lose your startup job and you don't have a clearance, you're screwed.) We also have this good news/bad news airport situation: The airport is in the middle of town and it's VERY easy to get in and out of quickly. OTOH there are few direct flights anywhere -- the Bay area being a notable exception.
- ianai 9y agoHow is it possible they have few direct flights? It's an international airport. Anyway, that's the sort of thing that would change if it became a tech hub. I imagine that's all supply/demand. The infrastructure is already there.
- 9y ago
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoUnaffordable housing is how local homeowners loot the vast sums of money chasing tech talent. If housing is affordable, you can assume that the high-paying jobs aren't there. If you start to prop up the job market there, it'll quickly become unaffordable once folks realize that its a tech hub.
- curiousgal 9y agoFort Collins as well!
- TallGuyShort 9y agoI recently moved from Silicon Valley back home to northern Colorado. And now I read the comments local newspaper articles and it's all about how bad the traffic congestion is and how housing prices are ridiculously high. It's all relative, I guess.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 9y agoSparkFun is based in Niwot between Boulder and Longmont, so the cost of living would be much cheaper there. Much cheaper than Boulder and obviously cheaper than Silicon Valley. Colorado has its own problems and housing costs are rising, but there are plenty of places to live here that are affordable. Even if you live in Denver, I think you get a better value for your salary than in SV.
- tspike 9y agoNiwot has virtually no housing supply and what is there isn't much cheaper than Boulder. If you want more affordable, you go to Longmont or further.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 9y agoI'm talking about the company, a company which needs warehouse space. I'm not talking about housing for people.
- pdeuchler 9y agoI think the mailing address is just in Niwot, but it's really unincorporated Boulder County
- CPLX 9y agoDo any of you modern Colorado people have an opinion of Colorado Springs these days for startups or tech or really anything? I went to school there (CC) but that was back in the early 90's so I'm not exactly up on things, but I've long considered reconnecting with the area, finding an excuse to open a satellite office or something. In my memory the Springs was pretty sleepy and outside of the small little hippie commune liberal arts college was mostly comprised of retired or military or both. Does Colorado Springs figure at all in Colorado's business/tech scene?
- Balgair 9y agoNot really. It's too long a drive from Denver/Boulder, so people end up moving north. It's got some stuff, but the Academy is really the only 'big' uni. and they don't really interact with local businesses as they are commissioned officers still. Different vibe from 'open' higher education.
- 65827 9y agoIt's a military town first and foremost, there is a tech scene but most of it seems to be adjacent to defense/aerospace. Seems like a bit of a different world that the rest of tech sometimes. My knowledge is pretty out of date, I imagine it has exploded into a national security apparatus city as well by now.
- kornish 9y agoI was just at Colorado College's graduation (go Tigers!) and spoke with friends and professors about this. Seems like right now the only people choosing to work in tech in CSprings are doing it because they don't want to move away from an established lifestyle or because they want to contribute to the local ecosystem. If you're looking to open a satellite office, Boulder or Denver would be much better bang for buck.
- shemnon42 9y agoI lived in COS for 15 years, and recently bailed and moved to Boulder. COS had the good seeds of a tech hub prior to the dot com melt down. Lots of cities did. But what I think helped drain the potential was 9/11 and the uptick in defense contracting. All the engineers went to one of several contractors and all the non-engineers who would get involved in startups left town because they couldn't find engineers who would take the risk. It's a great town if you want to work on the fringes, or commute to Denver, or work in government contracting. Since none of those three fit my needs I packed it up and moved to the Broomfield corridor (I couldn't afford Boulder proper).
- w00tw001 9y agoCU is not a good school... There are a few good parts but the rest of it is absolute garbage; it is full of lazy rich kids that just want to party
- Balgair 9y agoMeh. The STEM side is really good, can't speak for the rest though. Also, ahem, there are 4 campuses, haven't you seen the billboards and the A-Line? /s
- w00tw001 9y agoMaybe the STE, definitely not the M! Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard the students are even more burnt out at UCD. I have no idea what UCCS is like though.
- Balgair 9y agoThe physics dept at CU-D is an utter flaming shit-show currently, fwiw. Hard-pass. I don't know about the Math at Boulder, but I haven't heard much fair or negative about it. Not enough data to make any conclusions. AMC is alright, but it's post-undergrad/grad-school only, so anything you hear has that flavor added. Lots of med-y students though, few researchers in small labs (<3 grad students/PI). CU-CS? No idea, never talked to anyone that graduated there or is there now. Guess that means it's not super good or super bad then, again, not enough data.
- cristiancavalli 9y agoWow, that's a massive (and inaccurate) generalization. Not only have I worked with many CU grads that were passionate and intelligent but a couple of them did incredible work with NASA, Google and IBM in their undergrad/grad school work and were responsible for some very important equipment going into space. I myself am not a CU grad (go Lobos) but I have respect for some of the very talented people that CU has graduated.