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"official" FTEs is one way to slice it, but kind of dumb. Seattle is home to two of the five biggest tech companies in the US. Boston has had an IPO every ye
by replicatorblog 9y ago
"official"
FTEs is one way to slice it, but kind of dumb.
Seattle is home to two of the five biggest tech companies in the US.
Boston has had an IPO every year for the last ten years that exceeds any in NYC history.
LA has had the only 11-digit IPO in the last five years, outside of the bay area. It's also capturing the zeitgeist in a way that NYC no longer does (that's subjective, of course, but I'd debate it).
Just by market cap, Sydney's three biggest tech co's would are more impressive than NYC's.
NYC is an awesome startup city, but the idea that it's the clear #2 is silly.
- whack 9y agoAll the criteria you chose seem like bad proxies for the things that really matter. I would count the following as the fundamental metrics that really count. - Average (high-end) programmer salary - Amount of VC funding - Total number of full-time tech workers The 1st and 2nd criteria determine how attractive the city is, for employees and founders respectively. The 3rd criteria determines how much clustering/network effects the city enjoys. On all 3 criteria, NYC is either 1st or 2nd. NYC hedge funds have bid up programmer salaries to levels that are virtually impossible to get anywhere else besides SFBA. The data on VC-funding shows NYC as a solid #2, only behind SFBA. And the linked article shows that in terms of networking potential, NYC is #2 as well. https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/10/venture-capital-concentration/539775/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/10/venture-capital-concent...
- timothycrosley 9y agoYou sort of prove the cherry picking argument. Average salary means nothing in a vacuum without cost of living considered. And when it is... Unsurprisingly NYC comes in at the bottom of the list, https://www.codementor.io/blog/best-cities-software-engineer-earnings-271vpf599k https://www.codementor.io/blog/best-cities-software-engineer... Seattle is actually #1
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tashoecraft 9y agoI can’t trust any of these comparisions because it’s difficult to compare apartments across cities. Average apartment costs in new york are meaningless. I know of no one paying 3k per month. Usually it’s between 1k-1.5k, which completely changes this graph.
- ropans808 9y agoPlease tell me where anyone is paying 1k-1.5k for an apartment in NYC. I am paying 2700/mo for 650 sqft, 45 minute commute from midtown, and I haven't seen anything better without a longer commute. Studios in my neighborhood are 1.6k+, and I am not in a happenin' place.
- tashoecraft 9y agoShould have specified, but thought it would be implied...roomates or significant other. Yes it’s not an equal comparision to other areas as you can get a whole apartment there by yourself. If your paying 2700, find some roomates, move to bushwick/east williamsburg astoria, downtown brooklyn. And now your paying 1-1.5
- steveklabnik 9y agoNorth Brooklyn is slightly higher than that range, but lower than 2700/month, and should be roughly the same commute time.
- RulingWalnut 9y agoI lived in Harlem 30 minutes from Midtown in a 2bdrm with a roommmate for 850, I now live in Boerum Hill (really nice neighborhood) 30 minutes from Midtown in a studio for 1800. It's really not hard to find places that aren't that expensive, you just have to be patient / willing to have a roommate or two.
- aje403 9y agoYou can get 650 sqft in midtown or the surrounding neighborhoods for 2700, probably in an okay doorman building even.
- 9y ago
- JOnAgain 9y agoYou get paid more gross in NYC than Seattle, but the take-home is less due to taxes. Cost of living is also approximately double. I did the math last year -- offer was 5% higher in NYC, but the after-tax and living disposable income was 50% higher in Seattle. 2/3rd the gross pay in Austin probably gives a significant "raise" in terms of relative standard of living and maybe 1/4 the money in many parts of Asia would move you even higher. All I'm saying is that Average Salary is probably a bad way to compare across geographies.
- vthallam 9y agoI thought while Cost of living in Seattle is relatively lesser than NYC, the house prices are exorbitant. NYC has advantage of very close proximity to NJ, Connecticut where you could probably get a better home than in Seattle-Bellvue-Redmond area.
- lotsofpulp 9y agoThe time, effort, and stress of commuting easily offsets any gains from living outside of NYC. Any city with decent neighborhoods will be at least a 60 minute commute door to door, plus you have to budget another 30 minutes for delays and whatnot because the public transit is terrible. It's very difficult to plan anything on work days if you're commuting into NYC, and you get to pay super high rents and property taxes for states with huge deficits and infrastructure debt which means the situation won't get any better. Seattle offers better food, recreational activities, growing future, and no income tax. I'd say the weather is better too, but some people really miss the sun, but you can easily fly to a beach resort for multiple weekends of the year with the savings of not living in the NYC area.
- RHSeeger 9y agoOn the other hand, for NYC most of your commute is by train. Resting on the train is a lot less stressful than driving.
- 9y ago
- tryitnow 9y agoI agree those are good criteria but they tell only half the story. The other commenters metrics are more outcome focused. It's great if you have a lot of VC funding, but if it's not necessarily leading to attractive outcomes for investors or early employees then that's not going to be sustainable.
- wuliwong 9y ago> On all 3 criteria, NYC is either 1st or 2nd It's second on all three. First on zero.
- oculusthrift 9y agonew yorkers love self fellating like no other
- clairity 9y agoin my head (a totally unscientific read of the zeitgeist), it's 1. SF/SV (by a very wide margin) 2. LA, NYC, boston (3-way tie) 3. seattle, austin (2-way tie) 4. atlanta, chicago, and everywhere else obviously this is US-only since i don't know much about the international startup scene other than china in general has been exploding with competitive startups (although that seems to have cooled a bit?).
- replicatorblog 9y agoI'd move Boston into tier 3. It's actually an incredibly rich ecosystem, I'd put it #3 just behind SF/Seattle in terms of real-world impact, market cap of tech co's, etc. But no one really moves to Boston to start a company, they tend to be the folks who hung around after Harvard/MIT.
- Apocryphon 9y agoI feel like 2. and 3. are switched. LA/NY are tech cities because they are huge population areas with a lot of wealth, and so support almost every type of industry. Seattle and Austin both sound more like tech cultural cities, as they are smaller but more defined by tech, with both local giants (maybe ATX less so) and startups.
- dmode 9y agoAustin belongs to Tier 4. It is no way close to Seattle in terms of tech jobs and growing tech scenes
- yayitswei 9y agoI was just reading pg's "Cities" essay this morning (http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html). Much of what he said in 2008 is still relevant today. That said, I think NYC has come around a bit.
- fosco 9y agoI disagree with one of his conclusions regarding his reference to money and power. specifically, I see the '2008' housing crisis proving that money is power and without money power soon wanes. I see the bailout as a debate that the government lost and proof money in an of itself is power. I bring this up because the bay derives its power from money, if the money is going elsewhere it is not only losing money, it is losing power.
- mcbain 9y agoWho are you thinking of in Sydney? 1. Atlassian 2. Canva? 3. ?? I can’t think of anything else big and “impressive”. Who am I forgetting?