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Startup Cities Index: best cities for startup employees
- muninn_ 9y agoWell, clearly this is incorrect because San Francisco isn't number 1.
- celim307 9y agoit is if you sort by 'startup ecosystem', but i think is deranked due to COL
- muninn_ 9y agoTo me that just means the weights are wrong.
- personjerry 9y agoIt's the "best cities for startup employees" not "best cities for startups"
- muninn_ 9y agoRight, so it still has the weights incorrect because San Francisco isn't #1.
- jbob2000 9y agoGenuinely curious about how Tel Aviv, Israel, is considered safer than Toronto, Canada (4.13 vs 3.93). Yes, a city that is under threat from terrorist rocket barrages and who's national army is currently occupying a foreign state is safer than a city that barely sees homicides.
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- Nokinside 9y agoTerrorism is fear word. If you look at the raw numbers, Terrorism is just minor nuisance, even rocket barrages.
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- f00_ 9y agoLets use rocket attacks instead of terrorism. You could consider the actions of the US and Israel to be terroris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_... Tel Aviv seems great honestly. Really my only complaint against Israel is the expansion of settlements and the alliance with South Africa during apartheid.
- Pilfer 9y ago>Terrorism is just minor nuisance [sic] If you look at the raw numbers, only 3 people died in the boston bombings. But if you look at the economic costs, - The entire boston transit system was shut down for security reasons, disrupting the entire city - Large numbers of people did not go to work the next day, costing hundreds of millions in lost productivity - An enormous manhunt ensued, at the cost of over 300 million - Entire parts of the city were shut down, preventing them from going to work - 10s of millions in costs to the victims - Tens of thousands of hours of additional work for public employees - Billions in lost productivity nationwide as people focused on the media saga All this cost the terrorists only $200 in explosives. In your words, billions of dollars in economic damage "is just minor nuisance".
- Barrin92 9y agoIn Israel the rocket attacks are a large motivation for collaboration between the military / tech sector and there's plenty of startups that actually focus on providing services around this, there's an app for example that warns people when some rocket attack is supposed to happen. What you're identifying as cost here is actually a service that a business can provide. The close military connections (also supported by the conscription) are actually an asset for the country in terms of technological progress. Think of it like a messy version of the cold war.
- arcanus 9y agoHappy to see my home base in Austin doing respectably at #13. But London at 43? Seattle all the way down at 21? I find those results surprising. Is South Korean truly better in terms of gender equality than the USA? Many asian cultures are very male oriented.
- mark-ruwt 9y agoI was happy to see it there too, but if Cost of Living for San Francisco is 2.91 and Austin is 3.71, I'm having trouble putting much value in their metrics.
- nowo 9y agoI stumbled on that one too. But of course a high cost of living results in a low score and vice versa. Probably should have called it affordability.
- scaryclam 9y agoYeah, after reading through the list and the reasoning, I'm not sure what this has to do with startups at all. It looks more like a "is it worth moving here" index than anything else.
- gorbachev 9y agoGreat resource. The methodology seems pretty good, except maybe in the quality of life group. If you're black, I can guarantee you that while your colleagues will treat you with respect, you will endure frequent incidents of racism outside of work in Helsinki. While Singapore is safe, it's not without its problems. The Government there limits freedom of expression and assembly quite heavily. It would be cool, if would be able to weigh the different categories according to your value system and what you see as a priority for yourself, and see how that affects the rankings. It seems as if the categories are currently equally weighted.
- drspacemonkey 9y ago>If you're black ... you will endure frequent incidents of racism outside of work in Helsinki. I've never been, but I've always heard that Scandinavian countries are usually far better about such things. Gotta say, I'm a little disappointing to learn that I've heard wrong. Would you be willing to share some details?
- gorbachev 9y agoI'll mention three things both of which received quite a bit of attention in the local media. Two are directly related to race, one is directly related to immigration but really about race. About a year ago a Finnish mother of an 11-year-old son, who was adopted from South Africa when he was 6 months old, wrote about the experiences of her son. The son speaks perfect Finnish since he's been raised in Finland. He takes a school bus, but for some reason the school bus frequently doesn't stop for him, if he's at the stop by himself. He was in a national morning TV show telling about his experiences with children AND adults calling him names, exclude him socially and a woman living in the same building told him to leave his own playground. I'm not really surprised by what kids call each other, but adults calling an 11-year-old names is over the line. The second story is about quite a few stories about people of color using public transportation in Helsinki. That's apparently an environment where racists feel especially emboldened to "express" their viewpoints to minorities. One of the most egregious examples was of an middle-aged woman yelling at full volume at a teenage girl (half white, half black) to leave the bus accompanied by liberal use of the n-word. Finally the woman also threatened to send her dog at the girl. The girl asked the woman to be removed from the bus. The driver refused, so the girl left instead in fear of her well being. Again, an adult threatening a child just because the child was black. The third incident is the roughly three-month "demonstration" by neo nazis in front of the central train station in Helsinki. These Heroes of the Fatherland (bah!) decided that they'd demonstrate the current immigration practices by having an around-the-clock demonstration. That would've been probably ok, and the police really didn't intervene UNTIL several complaints about the neo nazis instigating fights or straight up assaulting passers by. Quite enlightening of the general attitude of some people in Finland is that the "camp", as it was called in the media, was visited by the Minister of the Interior of the Finnish Government. She is in charge of the police force in Finland. She was photographed giving the neo nazis a thumbs up. Somewhat related is an incident where a member of another neo nazi organization killed someone in the same area. During another demonstration and counter-demonstration, a 28-year-old Finnish man walked by the neo nazis and spat on the ground in front of them. While he was walking away, one of the neo nazis chased after him and kicked him in the chest causing the man to fall down and hit his head. He died a few days later. There's a very vocal and increasingly violent portion of the population in Finland who are racist and actively violent against people of color.
- seddona 9y agoI appreciate the effort that went into making this but the startup ecosystem ranking is nonsense. Berlin - 2? Beijing - 26? I'd like to be constructive but it appears to just be randomized.
- Nokinside 9y agoAssuming employees have lungs I'm surprised that Beijing is that high.
- mox1 9y agoAdditionally, Dubai (#29) is above New York (42). As a woman, that does not compute.
- morgante 9y agoAs a person who's lived in both, this definitely makes literally no sense. The startup ecosystem in NYC is leagues above Dubai (which is honestly 90% joke, useless startups). NYC is by any reasonable metric (funding, unicorns, exits, etc.) in the top 5 startup ecosystem worldwide.
- vdnkh 9y agoAgreed. The NYC JS scene is huge, entertaining, and very nicely knit. I've visited offices and been to meetups all around Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens (and even Jersey). We have our own conferences (EmpireJS and EmpireNode). There are great companies here in a variety of spaces. I believe that NYC, as a city, is extremely conducive to the "startup life".
- tekkk 9y agoThis site is extremely jarring on mobile. Please whoever made this fix that table at least. It renders only two columns at the time and does it terribly.
- tauntz 9y agoI recently used https://teleport.org/cities/ https://teleport.org/cities/ when comparing different options on where to move (it also has a startup scene section).
- dionidium 9y agoI think people significantly underestimate the economic power of the United States. For quality of life, income, and opportunity, you'd almost certainly want to be in, say, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City, or St. Louis (none of which are on the list) than Lagos, Nairobi, Bogota, Bratislava, or Bucharest (all of which are on the list). I know, I know. You think of those as nowhere places. But that's because, again, you're vastly underestimating the economic power of the United States and its cities.
- ctlaltdefeat 9y agoI don't know, I would much rather be in Bratislava or Bucharest than Pittsburgh (the only one out of your list I've been in) in terms of quality of life, income, and opportunity. Language is a different story though...
- dionidium 9y agoAs a St. Louisan, let me just say I'd rather be in Bratislava or Bucharest, too! Sounds super fun! But, I don't think this holds up if you discount the novelty factor. In purely economic terms, you'd want to be in Pittsburgh.
- smnscu 9y agoHaving lived in Bucharest for most of my life (and in many other countries as well), I recommend Cluj if you really want to live in Romania. Bucharest has nice areas if you have the patience to look for them, but its traffic, noise, and pollution are unbearable
- brymastr 9y agoFor the Tech section; Vancouver, Canada has a lower salary for the experienced column than for the entry level column. I know tech compensation in Vancouver is poor but I don't think it gets worse with experience.
- esseti 9y agoBest is subjective. I've been in Helsinki and Berlin, and I find very difficult to rank Helsinki above Berlin. There's more than just work for example.
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- tmoneyplease 9y agoHow is tuition $30K in China? It just is not. It's more like $1000 per year at most.
- chaostheory 9y agoHere's the thing this chart misses. Metros. The value of SF isn't just the city itself but the entire SF Bay Area metro i.e. Mountain View, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Oakland, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, ... I'm still missing a lot of cities but you get the picture. It dwarfs most of the places on this list except for maybe Seoul and the other US metros like LA and NY Also a lot of people who work in SF don't actually live in SF. Another big thing missing from this chart that you can't put into numbers are local 'attractions'. For example, if you live in the Bay Area you have relatively close access to Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, and other really nice spots. With a place like Singapore, you pretty much seen everything over one weekend (Malaysia imo is boring).
- jahaja 9y agoThe lack of a column for family/child related benefits is pretty symptomatic for startup culture. Interesting nonetheless.
- themanual 9y agoLondon is got to be much higher for sure!
- milesdyson_phd 9y agoDoe's sorting on columns even work? It looks like for the most part it does, but then for others it doesn't...
- Blackstone4 9y agoAs an Englishman, what gets me is how high the cost of living is in London relative to the salaries which are low when you compare them to the US or Switzerland. Us Brits like to think London is a world-class city with great tech but we just don't pay our people well whilst expecting them to rent tiny rooms... I've lived in the US the last 3.5 years and it has been fantastic. You earn way more over here...
- ytlty 9y agoDid anyone even try to scrub the data? Vancouver entry-level and experienced average salaries are $64,916 and $58,029 respectively. So the average experienced tech worker earns less than entry level?
- JMCQ87 9y agoThe relatively good affordability of SF compared to Berlin lets me doubt the methodology for that part of the score. Seoul and Hamburg are also not similarly affordable, but significantly more expensive than Berlin.