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Why does a particular city need a "startup scene"? As a startup employee, a practical reason to live somewhere with a "startup scene" is so that I can get anot

Why does a particular city need a "startup scene"? As a startup employee, a practical reason to live somewhere with a "startup scene" is so that I can get another job easily if something doesn't work out. I don't want to have to move from Valley Forge to Orlando when DuckDuckGo tanks.

moron4hire 16y ago
Nobody thinks of Valley Forge as a "startup city", but there are tons of tech firms and other firms in need of technical people there. Glenside, PA, population less than 10,000, probably one of the most backwards suburbs I've ever had the pleasure of living in, is home to Newgrounds.com. Regardless, this is the GD internet, you shouldn't have to actually be in Orlando to do good work for a company in Orlando. My employer currently has clients on the other side of the country. Neither we nor our client is ever going to admit that a full country's worth of distance and a 3 hour timezone disparity has a significant impact on the quality of our services. Even when I lived in the middling town of Chambersburg, where the first sizable city was Harrisburg at nearly an hour away, there were always options for programming employment in town. I took a 4 mile walk from Glenside to Ambler one Saturday and walked past 3 tech firms along the way. That's the thing, can anyone in any industry in this age afford to not have a sizable interest in computing and internet technology? Even Doodie Calls couldn't get away with running a paper business, and all they do is drive around in vans and scoop dog poop. If you're big enough to have employees, you're big enough to have tech need that can't be filled by your 15 year old nephew for weekend soda money. Maybe in 1985, when the vast majority of the population had no idea you could even link computers together nation-wide, it made sense to band together to take down the few companies that had tech need. But today is completely different.
bnoordhuis 16y ago
Shouldn't that be 'if DuckDuckGo tanks'? Or do you know something I don't? ;-)

moron4hire 16y ago

Nobody thinks of Valley Forge as a "startup city", but there are tons of tech firms and other firms in need of technical people there. Glenside, PA, population less than 10,000, probably one of the most backwards suburbs I've ever had the pleasure of living in, is home to Newgrounds.com. Regardless, this is the GD internet, you shouldn't have to actually be in Orlando to do good work for a company in Orlando. My employer currently has clients on the other side of the country. Neither we nor our client is ever going to admit that a full country's worth of distance and a 3 hour timezone disparity has a significant impact on the quality of our services. Even when I lived in the middling town of Chambersburg, where the first sizable city was Harrisburg at nearly an hour away, there were always options for programming employment in town. I took a 4 mile walk from Glenside to Ambler one Saturday and walked past 3 tech firms along the way. That's the thing, can anyone in any industry in this age afford to not have a sizable interest in computing and internet technology? Even Doodie Calls couldn't get away with running a paper business, and all they do is drive around in vans and scoop dog poop. If you're big enough to have employees, you're big enough to have tech need that can't be filled by your 15 year old nephew for weekend soda money. Maybe in 1985, when the vast majority of the population had no idea you could even link computers together nation-wide, it made sense to band together to take down the few companies that had tech need. But today is completely different.

bnoordhuis 16y ago

Shouldn't that be 'if DuckDuckGo tanks'? Or do you know something I don't? ;-)