4 ms·

Every city wants to be the 'next Silicon Valley' but can never retain the companies. Its not a problem endemic to Pittsburgh. Can you think of a city that's not

Every city wants to be the 'next Silicon Valley' but can never retain the companies. Its not a problem endemic to Pittsburgh. Can you think of a city that's not in the west that can honestly claim this title? Its not just the capital - there's a sense of entrepreneurial manifest destiny mixed in there that can't be stopped. For a tech company that doesn't have hard assets there's nothing stopping wide-eyed entrepreneurs from picking up & moving west. And lets get honest here - Pittsburgh is great but if you're finally making it to the big time, why would you want to stay in a declining rustbelt city?

mtomczak 16y ago
Property values are significantly lower in Pittsburgh, which makes property ownership easier. And the top-quality colleges in the city continue to graduate excellent candidates for tech company employment. Although a graduate can ship out west, the lower costs in Pittsburgh make the path to ownership shorter. I'll be interested to see if the economic downturn will give graduates pause when thinking about shipping themselves three timezones away into an expensive location, when the cheaper prices in Pittsburgh could offer a lifestyle with less debt.
- rwhitman 16y ago
  Yea but who graduating college thinks about home ownership? I left Philadelphia for CA shortly after college 6 yrs ago. I still rent here and I know that if I stayed in PA I would probably own multiple properties at this point. Honestly I would rather rent in California than own a mansion in Pennsylvania. My life is just infinitely better here.
  - 146 16y ago
    True, but remember that most startup founders are not just graduating college.
  - bmj 16y ago
    I know many graduate students that buy homes during their stay in Pittsburgh rather than renting, and simply sell when they leave. Often, those homes end up in the hands of other graduate students.
    - timtadh 16y ago
      I mean I am about to do this (in Cleveland at CWRU instead of Pittsburg at CMU) but the principle of the thing is the same. These cities have some of the lowest costs of living to be found anywhere in the US. I would also note that Cleveland has the same problems mentioned in the article to a degree, but is managing to retain bio-tech firms. This is mainly due to the top notch institutions (hello Cleveland Clinic) which are in the city.
- thwarted 16y ago
  It seems increasingly unlikely that the kind of person who is interested in real estate ownership, for the purposes of living in it, is not the same kind of person who values the flexibility and uncertainty of startup culture, two of the things that are attractive about Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.
146 16y ago
> And lets get honest here - Pittsburgh is great but if you're finally making it to the big time, why would you want to stay in a declining rustbelt city? Luis (the reCAPTCHA founder) wrote a blog post about this recently. Basically to summarize, staying in Pittsburgh helped picking up CMU talent, and Pittsburgh doesn't suffer from a lot of distractions that come with the Valley. http://vonahn.blogspot.com/2010/06/startups-and-cmu.html http://vonahn.blogspot.com/2010/06/startups-and-cmu.html Very importantly to note though, Luis has a professorship, a fiance, and a life built out in Pittsburgh. Similarly, I've heard that a lot of the Google Pittsburgh engineers are family men/women who don't want to leave the area.
- melling 16y ago
  Robots. This is going to be the decade of robots. Carnegie Mellon is a world leader, and Pittsburgh should benefit from the boom. Just Google and see what you come up with. I found a few: http://www.seegrid.com/seegridoffices.html http://www.seegrid.com/seegridoffices.html http://kotaku.com/5577771/intel-inside-your-mind-serving-you-drinks http://kotaku.com/5577771/intel-inside-your-mind-serving-you... - Intel Lab in Pittsburgh http://www.pittsburghroboticssociety.org/ http://www.pittsburghroboticssociety.org/
- jimbokun 16y ago
  An interesting thought from that discussion: "I agree with you, the resources in the Valley can't be beat. Fortunately there is a way to leverage both - we are trying to pave the way for development in Pittsburgh and business in SV. There are many upsides to this approach - incredible team, dedication, outside the bubble, lower costs, better office space, local recruiting, etc. We are testing this all out at the moment - so far so good!"
spot 16y ago
> a declining rustbelt city Your opinions are about 30 years behind reality. Why do you think Obama picked them to host the G20?
- natrius 16y ago
  Votes? I shouldn't know that Altoona, PA even exists, but thanks to the 2008 campaign season, I do. Swing states get attention. I know nothing about Pittsburgh, so I'm not suggesting anything negative about the city. There are just plenty of other possible reasons behind the evidence you gave.
- rwhitman 16y ago
  I don't think of the G20 as being a marker of endorsement for a city's economic well-being. If anything its akin to putting a big red target mark for chaos & destruction. Pittsburgh may just be well suited to absorbing riots
  - spot 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_Pittsburgh_summit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_Pittsburgh_summit the Obama Administration announced a change of venue to Pittsburgh in order to highlight the city's economic recovery following the collapse of its manufacturing sector in the latter half of the 20th century.
rwhitman 16y ago
I love how I got downvoted to 0 for telling the truth. I think Pittsburgh is great, its one of my favorite places. But, you can substitute Pittsburgh for Cleveland or Philadelphia, or Chicago or St Louis or Baltimore. At the end of the day successful entrepreneurs typically go to where there is the most upwards economic activity.

mtomczak 16y ago

Property values are significantly lower in Pittsburgh, which makes property ownership easier. And the top-quality colleges in the city continue to graduate excellent candidates for tech company employment. Although a graduate can ship out west, the lower costs in Pittsburgh make the path to ownership shorter. I'll be interested to see if the economic downturn will give graduates pause when thinking about shipping themselves three timezones away into an expensive location, when the cheaper prices in Pittsburgh could offer a lifestyle with less debt.

rwhitman 16y ago
Yea but who graduating college thinks about home ownership? I left Philadelphia for CA shortly after college 6 yrs ago. I still rent here and I know that if I stayed in PA I would probably own multiple properties at this point. Honestly I would rather rent in California than own a mansion in Pennsylvania. My life is just infinitely better here.
- 146 16y ago
  True, but remember that most startup founders are not just graduating college.
- bmj 16y ago
  I know many graduate students that buy homes during their stay in Pittsburgh rather than renting, and simply sell when they leave. Often, those homes end up in the hands of other graduate students.
  - timtadh 16y ago
    I mean I am about to do this (in Cleveland at CWRU instead of Pittsburg at CMU) but the principle of the thing is the same. These cities have some of the lowest costs of living to be found anywhere in the US. I would also note that Cleveland has the same problems mentioned in the article to a degree, but is managing to retain bio-tech firms. This is mainly due to the top notch institutions (hello Cleveland Clinic) which are in the city.
thwarted 16y ago
It seems increasingly unlikely that the kind of person who is interested in real estate ownership, for the purposes of living in it, is not the same kind of person who values the flexibility and uncertainty of startup culture, two of the things that are attractive about Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.

146 16y ago

> And lets get honest here - Pittsburgh is great but if you're finally making it to the big time, why would you want to stay in a declining rustbelt city? Luis (the reCAPTCHA founder) wrote a blog post about this recently. Basically to summarize, staying in Pittsburgh helped picking up CMU talent, and Pittsburgh doesn't suffer from a lot of distractions that come with the Valley. http://vonahn.blogspot.com/2010/06/startups-and-cmu.html http://vonahn.blogspot.com/2010/06/startups-and-cmu.html Very importantly to note though, Luis has a professorship, a fiance, and a life built out in Pittsburgh. Similarly, I've heard that a lot of the Google Pittsburgh engineers are family men/women who don't want to leave the area.

melling 16y ago
Robots. This is going to be the decade of robots. Carnegie Mellon is a world leader, and Pittsburgh should benefit from the boom. Just Google and see what you come up with. I found a few: http://www.seegrid.com/seegridoffices.html http://www.seegrid.com/seegridoffices.html http://kotaku.com/5577771/intel-inside-your-mind-serving-you-drinks http://kotaku.com/5577771/intel-inside-your-mind-serving-you... - Intel Lab in Pittsburgh http://www.pittsburghroboticssociety.org/ http://www.pittsburghroboticssociety.org/
jimbokun 16y ago
An interesting thought from that discussion: "I agree with you, the resources in the Valley can't be beat. Fortunately there is a way to leverage both - we are trying to pave the way for development in Pittsburgh and business in SV. There are many upsides to this approach - incredible team, dedication, outside the bubble, lower costs, better office space, local recruiting, etc. We are testing this all out at the moment - so far so good!"

spot 16y ago

> a declining rustbelt city Your opinions are about 30 years behind reality. Why do you think Obama picked them to host the G20?

natrius 16y ago
Votes? I shouldn't know that Altoona, PA even exists, but thanks to the 2008 campaign season, I do. Swing states get attention. I know nothing about Pittsburgh, so I'm not suggesting anything negative about the city. There are just plenty of other possible reasons behind the evidence you gave.
rwhitman 16y ago
I don't think of the G20 as being a marker of endorsement for a city's economic well-being. If anything its akin to putting a big red target mark for chaos & destruction. Pittsburgh may just be well suited to absorbing riots
- spot 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_Pittsburgh_summit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G-20_Pittsburgh_summit the Obama Administration announced a change of venue to Pittsburgh in order to highlight the city's economic recovery following the collapse of its manufacturing sector in the latter half of the 20th century.

rwhitman 16y ago

I love how I got downvoted to 0 for telling the truth. I think Pittsburgh is great, its one of my favorite places. But, you can substitute Pittsburgh for Cleveland or Philadelphia, or Chicago or St Louis or Baltimore. At the end of the day successful entrepreneurs typically go to where there is the most upwards economic activity.