7 ms·

New York City to displace Silicon Valley

15 points by wallflower 16y ago

redthrowaway 16y ago
Wow. No. This article seems to completely ignore what makes the valley the epicenter of tech, and instead posits things that have very little impact as being game changers. Car-driven societies aren't social? Silicon Valley startups would do well to act like New York ones? Which would those be? Hand-waving does not a hotbed of innovation make. It'll take more than bullshit to make NYC into the Bay Area. I'll pay attention when they have top tech universities and a culture friendly to innovation and entrepreneurship rather than big money.
- tristan_louis 16y ago
  So what makes the valley the epicenter of tech: talent and the ability to attract more talent (at the end of the day, that's what makes a place the epicenter of anything). On the first, the valley does have an advantage today. On the second point, that's changing, thus creating a potential issue. That's addressed in this entry (http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/01/08/silicon-valley-vs-new-york-talent/ http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/01/08/silicon-valley-vs-new-yor...) : There is also a virtuous circle to the rise of New York turning it into an ever more attractive place for members of the tech field. As Fred Wilson recently pointed out: If you are a 22 year old man or woman just starting out in life, would you rather live in suburbia and work on a campus or would you rather live in Williamsburg and work in Flatiron? So the more successful the city becomes as a tech center, the more attractive it becomes to people who want to help it become more successful as a tech center. The quality of life element is going to be an important challenge the valley will have to change if they want to survive the New York onslaught.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    Williamsburg isn't particularly appealing to nerds, if only because we tend to dislike hipsters. Most of us don't really care where we live if what we're doing is building something new. To be honest, we probably won't go outside much. Having a house where you can all work together is perfect in this regard.
    - tristan_louis 16y ago
      There is a valuable argument to rooming together (though that's the case for a lot of people in New York too). The difference is that in New York, you may also be more likely to room with someone who's not a geek. And if you don't get out (though you're bound to if for no other reason than to go and get basic substenance like food), that person could bring some influences that may help you code something new from a social standpoint. And while it's true that Williamsburg isn't very appealing to geeks, I can warrant that other parts of town are (eg. DUMBO)
      - redthrowaway 16y ago
        None of the benefits you claim come from living in NYC are any different from those you get from going to college. Look at Reddit: a geek and a front man lived across from eachother and bonded over video games. Would Reddit have been successful without Ohanian? Probably not. Did they need to be in Williamsburg to figure out their concept? No.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
michaelty 16y ago
Zed Shaw counters: http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2010-01-19.html http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2010-01-19.html http://oppugn.us/posts/1286944278.html http://oppugn.us/posts/1286944278.html
- jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
  Etsy invalidates most of this
Skeletor 16y ago
The NYC tech scene has a ton of problems. One I encountered is recruiting good programmers: 1) Living in NYC is expensive and if you are struggling on a startup you will see friends making several hundred dollars an hour as consultants. 2) Wall Street pays software developers a ton of money and then trains them on legacy technology and rewards them for having incredibly specialized skill sets (I worked with a brilliant programmer in NY who only wrote ".h" header C++ files. I mean that's all he ever did and made several hundred thousand a year.) 3) VC's in NY hate software developers and believe that business people should run everything. This is a deep prejudice, that comes from the finance people on Wall St. treating their technology people poorly. In NY finance companies I've seen incredibly talented programmers who make several hundred thousand a year who were forced to use up a vacation day if they went home early to check on their sick kids. I don't even understand why a company would pay people so well and then treat them like crap. 4) Software developers in NY don't understand the value of equity, they have no personal success stories to look at and are used to being paid huge sums of cash in bonuses. 5) I can say this from years of experience: In NYC being an investment banker or trader will get you laid, being an entrepreneur/programmer at a startup totally won't.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  Even the tone of the article was dismissive of developers. "The previous revolution was all silicon and algorithms. This one's social". Tard.
  - tristan_louis 16y ago
    In what way is it dismissive of developers? I'd love to hear.
    - redthrowaway 16y ago
      >While the technology world was long dominated by hardware and algorithms, the current phase (often referred to as “the social web”) is all about people. The current King of Social was started by a pretty damned anti-social guy. Running with a The Social Network analogy (I know, but bear with me), you seem to be implying that the next phase of innovation will be driven by Winlkevosses, not Zuckerbergs. That must be plainly false. Just because "social" is a nice buzz word these days does not mean that the people making these innovations are any more social than they used to be. The general tone of your article seems to be that there are business guys in New York, and business guys know business, and they'll just find some code monkeys to build their great ideas. You ignore, however, that all of the major innovations and the most successful startups have been mostly free from interference from business types until later in their development. Speaking plainly, the MBA who goes to a hacker conference with an idea for "the next Facebook", who "just needs a programmer" is a laughingstock. The hacker who builds the next Facebook, then gets funding while maintaining control, is a god. New York has MBAs, not hackers. That, of course, is a gross misrepresentation, as there's a great hacker community there, but they tend to leave and go west if they're interested in entrepreneurship. You claimed that Silicon Valley startups could learn a thing or two from NYC startups. I'd really like to see some examples of what you think NYC startups are doing better, beyond simply making money. Bot herders make money from spam and brokerage firms make money from sub-prime derivatives, but neither of those are particularly admirable. If you want to find where people are making cool things, you go to Silicon Valley (or MIT, or Carnegie Mellon, or Waterloo, etc). If you want to attract top talent, you build cool things. The genius hackers who will build the next Google or Facebook will come from one of the top tech schools, and will migrate towards one of those centers in order to work with other genius hackers. They will only bring on MBAs when the VCs force them too, and that really doesn't speak too highly of NYC's future as a hub of innovation.
ziadbc 16y ago
The internet is a continuum beyond physical locality. That was why we (humans) invented it. It's no so much that the author is right or wrong, but he speaks from a perspective that is not relevant. Good for the companies built outside of Silicon Valley. Who said for Silicon Valley to win, everyone else needs to lose?
- jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
  That's partly true. Businesses, however, are still rooted in geography.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
bhoung 16y ago
The strongest points are 1) and 2): monocultures have a negative impact, and living in a city is inherently a social experience. Let's say NY and Silicon Valley are equal in the extent they are monocultures, it's apparent Silicon Valley comes out on top as the monoculture there is technology oriented. Now, looking at population density and opportunity for forming diverse social connections, I'd expect a larger denser city to come out on top. Answers to the above seem to also be answers to Richard Florida's question of where do the creative types go.

15 points by wallflower 16y ago

Wow. No. This article seems to completely ignore what makes the valley the epicenter of tech, and instead posits things that have very little impact as being game changers. Car-driven societies aren't social? Silicon Valley startups would do well to act like New York ones? Which would those be? Hand-waving does not a hotbed of innovation make. It'll take more than bullshit to make NYC into the Bay Area. I'll pay attention when they have top tech universities and a culture friendly to innovation and entrepreneurship rather than big money.

tristan_louis 16y ago
So what makes the valley the epicenter of tech: talent and the ability to attract more talent (at the end of the day, that's what makes a place the epicenter of anything). On the first, the valley does have an advantage today. On the second point, that's changing, thus creating a potential issue. That's addressed in this entry (http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/01/08/silicon-valley-vs-new-york-talent/ http://www.tnl.net/blog/2011/01/08/silicon-valley-vs-new-yor...) : There is also a virtuous circle to the rise of New York turning it into an ever more attractive place for members of the tech field. As Fred Wilson recently pointed out: If you are a 22 year old man or woman just starting out in life, would you rather live in suburbia and work on a campus or would you rather live in Williamsburg and work in Flatiron? So the more successful the city becomes as a tech center, the more attractive it becomes to people who want to help it become more successful as a tech center. The quality of life element is going to be an important challenge the valley will have to change if they want to survive the New York onslaught.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  Williamsburg isn't particularly appealing to nerds, if only because we tend to dislike hipsters. Most of us don't really care where we live if what we're doing is building something new. To be honest, we probably won't go outside much. Having a house where you can all work together is perfect in this regard.
  - tristan_louis 16y ago
    There is a valuable argument to rooming together (though that's the case for a lot of people in New York too). The difference is that in New York, you may also be more likely to room with someone who's not a geek. And if you don't get out (though you're bound to if for no other reason than to go and get basic substenance like food), that person could bring some influences that may help you code something new from a social standpoint. And while it's true that Williamsburg isn't very appealing to geeks, I can warrant that other parts of town are (eg. DUMBO)
    - redthrowaway 16y ago
      None of the benefits you claim come from living in NYC are any different from those you get from going to college. Look at Reddit: a geek and a front man lived across from eachother and bonded over video games. Would Reddit have been successful without Ohanian? Probably not. Did they need to be in Williamsburg to figure out their concept? No.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

michaelty 16y ago

Zed Shaw counters: http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2010-01-19.html http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2010-01-19.html http://oppugn.us/posts/1286944278.html http://oppugn.us/posts/1286944278.html

jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
Etsy invalidates most of this

Skeletor 16y ago

The NYC tech scene has a ton of problems. One I encountered is recruiting good programmers: 1) Living in NYC is expensive and if you are struggling on a startup you will see friends making several hundred dollars an hour as consultants. 2) Wall Street pays software developers a ton of money and then trains them on legacy technology and rewards them for having incredibly specialized skill sets (I worked with a brilliant programmer in NY who only wrote ".h" header C++ files. I mean that's all he ever did and made several hundred thousand a year.) 3) VC's in NY hate software developers and believe that business people should run everything. This is a deep prejudice, that comes from the finance people on Wall St. treating their technology people poorly. In NY finance companies I've seen incredibly talented programmers who make several hundred thousand a year who were forced to use up a vacation day if they went home early to check on their sick kids. I don't even understand why a company would pay people so well and then treat them like crap. 4) Software developers in NY don't understand the value of equity, they have no personal success stories to look at and are used to being paid huge sums of cash in bonuses. 5) I can say this from years of experience: In NYC being an investment banker or trader will get you laid, being an entrepreneur/programmer at a startup totally won't.

redthrowaway 16y ago
Even the tone of the article was dismissive of developers. "The previous revolution was all silicon and algorithms. This one's social". Tard.
- tristan_louis 16y ago
  In what way is it dismissive of developers? I'd love to hear.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    >While the technology world was long dominated by hardware and algorithms, the current phase (often referred to as “the social web”) is all about people. The current King of Social was started by a pretty damned anti-social guy. Running with a The Social Network analogy (I know, but bear with me), you seem to be implying that the next phase of innovation will be driven by Winlkevosses, not Zuckerbergs. That must be plainly false. Just because "social" is a nice buzz word these days does not mean that the people making these innovations are any more social than they used to be. The general tone of your article seems to be that there are business guys in New York, and business guys know business, and they'll just find some code monkeys to build their great ideas. You ignore, however, that all of the major innovations and the most successful startups have been mostly free from interference from business types until later in their development. Speaking plainly, the MBA who goes to a hacker conference with an idea for "the next Facebook", who "just needs a programmer" is a laughingstock. The hacker who builds the next Facebook, then gets funding while maintaining control, is a god. New York has MBAs, not hackers. That, of course, is a gross misrepresentation, as there's a great hacker community there, but they tend to leave and go west if they're interested in entrepreneurship. You claimed that Silicon Valley startups could learn a thing or two from NYC startups. I'd really like to see some examples of what you think NYC startups are doing better, beyond simply making money. Bot herders make money from spam and brokerage firms make money from sub-prime derivatives, but neither of those are particularly admirable. If you want to find where people are making cool things, you go to Silicon Valley (or MIT, or Carnegie Mellon, or Waterloo, etc). If you want to attract top talent, you build cool things. The genius hackers who will build the next Google or Facebook will come from one of the top tech schools, and will migrate towards one of those centers in order to work with other genius hackers. They will only bring on MBAs when the VCs force them too, and that really doesn't speak too highly of NYC's future as a hub of innovation.

ziadbc 16y ago

The internet is a continuum beyond physical locality. That was why we (humans) invented it. It's no so much that the author is right or wrong, but he speaks from a perspective that is not relevant. Good for the companies built outside of Silicon Valley. Who said for Silicon Valley to win, everyone else needs to lose?

jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
That's partly true. Businesses, however, are still rooted in geography.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

bhoung 16y ago

The strongest points are 1) and 2): monocultures have a negative impact, and living in a city is inherently a social experience. Let's say NY and Silicon Valley are equal in the extent they are monocultures, it's apparent Silicon Valley comes out on top as the monoculture there is technology oriented. Now, looking at population density and opportunity for forming diverse social connections, I'd expect a larger denser city to come out on top. Answers to the above seem to also be answers to Richard Florida's question of where do the creative types go.