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Etsy? Blue Apron? SV is the giant sucking sound of the tech industry. More often than not a startup will be founded in a place like New York, Chicago or Boston

by ohyes 8y ago

Etsy? Blue Apron? SV is the giant sucking sound of the tech industry. More often than not a startup will be founded in a place like New York, Chicago or Boston and then move to SV to try to get VC funding. I think it has very little to do with the ‘culture of innovation’ and more to do with rich white guys willing to splash around money in seemingly longshot businesses. I guess maybe that is what innovation is all about.

rsj_hn 8y ago
Your racist comments notwithstanding, the idea of founders moving to a place where they can access funding networks is one of the reasons why there is a strong productive ecosystem in SV for starting firms. If they could have tapped the same funding networks and skillsets in other places, they would go there, too. I'm not saying it's something in the water, it's the whole ecosystem of investors, employees, infrastructure, social networks, etc. I wouldn't call Etsy market dominant, but perhaps Blue Apron would qualify -- I think it's the largest in its space. They have what, ~900 million in revenue? There are about 70 SV founded companies that earn that much or more in revenue, starting from AAPL on down to Splunk/Infinera/EFI, which are all hovering around that revenue range.
- arcaster 8y ago
  Have to agree here - SV gets too caught up in its own inflated politics and self-contrived problems that are seemingly not sustainable or profitable. NYC may have fewer "unicorns" but NYC tech generally solves actual problems with shorter term realities of profitability sans VC slush funding.
  - rsj_hn 8y ago
    I don't know why you think "Blue Apron" and "Trello" solve real problems but that, say, Intel, Cisco, Seagate, Oracle, Adobe, NVIDIA, HP, and Google do not. That sounds, well, crazy. Adobe alone singlehandedly changed the nature of publishing in the U.S. Google revolutionized search. Intel made huge advances in CPUs. Oracle pioneered relational databases. Cisco pioneered routers and firewalls. Seagate made huge advances in storage. HP had enormous impact in research, operating systems, personal computers, printers, services. SUN invented java. Netscape invented the modern web browser (image tag + javascript + cookies). There's a little impact there, no? The list goes on. Your opinion is really baffling. The impact on real world problems made by SV tech companies vs NY tech companies -- they're not even in the same universe of relevance. Look NYC dominates in publishing, in art, in finance. It's a great city. But it's a pimple on the butt of SV when it comes to tech.

by ohyes 8y ago

rsj_hn 8y ago

Your racist comments notwithstanding, the idea of founders moving to a place where they can access funding networks is one of the reasons why there is a strong productive ecosystem in SV for starting firms. If they could have tapped the same funding networks and skillsets in other places, they would go there, too. I'm not saying it's something in the water, it's the whole ecosystem of investors, employees, infrastructure, social networks, etc. I wouldn't call Etsy market dominant, but perhaps Blue Apron would qualify -- I think it's the largest in its space. They have what, ~900 million in revenue? There are about 70 SV founded companies that earn that much or more in revenue, starting from AAPL on down to Splunk/Infinera/EFI, which are all hovering around that revenue range.

arcaster 8y ago
Have to agree here - SV gets too caught up in its own inflated politics and self-contrived problems that are seemingly not sustainable or profitable. NYC may have fewer "unicorns" but NYC tech generally solves actual problems with shorter term realities of profitability sans VC slush funding.
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  I don't know why you think "Blue Apron" and "Trello" solve real problems but that, say, Intel, Cisco, Seagate, Oracle, Adobe, NVIDIA, HP, and Google do not. That sounds, well, crazy. Adobe alone singlehandedly changed the nature of publishing in the U.S. Google revolutionized search. Intel made huge advances in CPUs. Oracle pioneered relational databases. Cisco pioneered routers and firewalls. Seagate made huge advances in storage. HP had enormous impact in research, operating systems, personal computers, printers, services. SUN invented java. Netscape invented the modern web browser (image tag + javascript + cookies). There's a little impact there, no? The list goes on. Your opinion is really baffling. The impact on real world problems made by SV tech companies vs NY tech companies -- they're not even in the same universe of relevance. Look NYC dominates in publishing, in art, in finance. It's a great city. But it's a pimple on the butt of SV when it comes to tech.