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As someone who went to CMU, there are just so few investors in Pittsburgh. In fact, many years ago I was talking with Severin Hacker (Duolingo cofounder) about

As someone who went to CMU, there are just so few investors in Pittsburgh. In fact, many years ago I was talking with Severin Hacker (Duolingo cofounder) about some of the challenges of running a company there. There is a lot of engineering talent...and that's it. Marketing? Business development? There just aren't (or weren't) that many people there. I also know that Anki moved to San Francisco because it was the only way they could raise money. I also left Pittsburgh because it was the only way I could raise money. So long as the investors are in the Bay Area, it will continue to be the startup mecca of the world. That does seem to be slowly changing, but not nearly as fast as anyone promoting their city as the next startup hub is willing to admit.

Cyph0n 7y ago
I’m currently based in NC. Pittsburgh caught my eye as a potential place to move to, but it’s just too far away from... everything. I also understand it’s a very “sporty” city, which is something I’m not very into.
- cfallin 7y ago
  > I also understand it’s a very “sporty” city, which is something I’m not very into. I wouldn't necessarily discount the city for this; in my time there, I realized there were really two Pittsburghs. You'll see the steel-town football-obsessed side any time you walk past a bar, but near the CMU/Pitt bubble it actually had a really intellectual vibe that I miss now that I've left. Not just the abundance of grad students, doctors and the like, but good libraries and bookstores, a fantastic symphony orchestra, a quality coffee scene, etc. Has a Portland/Seattle-like (including gray weather) vibe. And Steelers games are great times to go grocery shopping! The travel situation isn't great though. PIT has direct flights to most east coast cities but getting to the west coast indeed sucks. (United does have a direct SFO flight, IIRC, if a bit pricy.)
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  I was in a similar boat coming to Pittsburgh, but I will say this about the mixture of tech and sports here: I've watched it have the effect of getting people who didn't care about sports one way or the other at least surface interested. It's a city where you can find a great many sports nerds who can introduce a person to why these games are interesting from a statistical and story side, which is how I've come to interact with them. There's something to be said for places that overlap multiple cultures.
busterarm 7y ago
I had to learn marketing, advertising and PR in a previous engineering role. Perhaps entrepreneurial engineers that leave the area should cross train and bring those skills back to Pittsburgh once they've got some years behind them.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  Pittsburgh has a weird vibe to it. Pretty much everybody that lives there is surprised by how much they like it (including myself) and aren't eager to leave, but once you have left there's just very little desire to go back. I have lived in many places (including other countries), and that's the only city that I didn't want to leave but also don't want to go back to. Basically it's nice enough to be comfortable, but not great enough to be desirable.
  - darkwizard42 7y ago
    As a CMU alumnus I can’t agree enough. I was pleasantly surprised with how neat a city it was (10 years ago) but once I left for SF I don’t think I could ever go back!
  - valleyjo 7y ago
    I’m from PGH but live in Seattle now. I plan to move back in the next few years based on the favorability with cost of living differences. Especially when you consider life with a single income family. It’s not as cool as Seattle but it’s not that bad either so I think it’s a good compromise.
  - AWildC182 7y ago
    Spent a large chunk of my life there and I can't believe how accurate this is. It's a wonderful place with so much to offer but I don't really feel like going back... I spent a lot of time on the rivers but the climate is changing it into a sort of cold Florida.
sjy 7y ago
Did you mean to refer to something other than Anki? I thought it was a free software project, not a company?
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  Anki was (they shut down a few months ago) a robotics company that raised around a quarter billion dollars. https://www.anki.com/ https://www.anki.com/
- exogeny 7y ago
  Anki, IIRC, also was a robotic toy company that was spun out of CMU. I believe it got a big check from a16z and then subsequently imploded.
dgacmu 7y ago
It's changing for the better. We raised our seed round here a few months ago with low friction (from valley VCs, not Pittsburgh VCs, but who cares?). We plan to stay Pittsburgh-based for the most part; we and our investors are entirely happy with that.
- cdolan 7y ago
  Also for Pittsburgh - excited to see what your up to at BrdgAI, good luck!
phendrenad2 7y ago
There's a lot of tech talent, but most employers are dinosaurs stuck in an ancient circa-2004 mindset (check any job listing from Pittsburgh and it'll be a soup of buzzwords from 2004. jQuery abounds. PHP is king. Even the "senior software engineer" job posting at Duolingo asks if you know "DOM" and "AJAX"). Also most jobs are contract, not even contract-to-hire. Some bank or trucking company needs some webforms worked on for a few months, and then you're gone. What's the point of all of this? Well, the hipsterism and average engineer tenure at a single company in silicon valley (which last I heard was 1.5 years) leads to everyone in silicon valley kind of being homogeneous cogs that are interchangeable. 20 years ago we all used PHP, Java, 10 years ago it was Rails and jQuery, and now it's React. I think that Pittsburgh is cut off from the talent here in silicon valley, because if you dropped a React developer into a company there they might as well be a space alien.

Cyph0n 7y ago

I’m currently based in NC. Pittsburgh caught my eye as a potential place to move to, but it’s just too far away from... everything. I also understand it’s a very “sporty” city, which is something I’m not very into.

cfallin 7y ago
> I also understand it’s a very “sporty” city, which is something I’m not very into. I wouldn't necessarily discount the city for this; in my time there, I realized there were really two Pittsburghs. You'll see the steel-town football-obsessed side any time you walk past a bar, but near the CMU/Pitt bubble it actually had a really intellectual vibe that I miss now that I've left. Not just the abundance of grad students, doctors and the like, but good libraries and bookstores, a fantastic symphony orchestra, a quality coffee scene, etc. Has a Portland/Seattle-like (including gray weather) vibe. And Steelers games are great times to go grocery shopping! The travel situation isn't great though. PIT has direct flights to most east coast cities but getting to the west coast indeed sucks. (United does have a direct SFO flight, IIRC, if a bit pricy.)
shadowgovt 7y ago
I was in a similar boat coming to Pittsburgh, but I will say this about the mixture of tech and sports here: I've watched it have the effect of getting people who didn't care about sports one way or the other at least surface interested. It's a city where you can find a great many sports nerds who can introduce a person to why these games are interesting from a statistical and story side, which is how I've come to interact with them. There's something to be said for places that overlap multiple cultures.

busterarm 7y ago

I had to learn marketing, advertising and PR in a previous engineering role. Perhaps entrepreneurial engineers that leave the area should cross train and bring those skills back to Pittsburgh once they've got some years behind them.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
Pittsburgh has a weird vibe to it. Pretty much everybody that lives there is surprised by how much they like it (including myself) and aren't eager to leave, but once you have left there's just very little desire to go back. I have lived in many places (including other countries), and that's the only city that I didn't want to leave but also don't want to go back to. Basically it's nice enough to be comfortable, but not great enough to be desirable.
- darkwizard42 7y ago
  As a CMU alumnus I can’t agree enough. I was pleasantly surprised with how neat a city it was (10 years ago) but once I left for SF I don’t think I could ever go back!
- valleyjo 7y ago
  I’m from PGH but live in Seattle now. I plan to move back in the next few years based on the favorability with cost of living differences. Especially when you consider life with a single income family. It’s not as cool as Seattle but it’s not that bad either so I think it’s a good compromise.
- AWildC182 7y ago
  Spent a large chunk of my life there and I can't believe how accurate this is. It's a wonderful place with so much to offer but I don't really feel like going back... I spent a lot of time on the rivers but the climate is changing it into a sort of cold Florida.

sjy 7y ago

Did you mean to refer to something other than Anki? I thought it was a free software project, not a company?

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
Anki was (they shut down a few months ago) a robotics company that raised around a quarter billion dollars. https://www.anki.com/ https://www.anki.com/
exogeny 7y ago
Anki, IIRC, also was a robotic toy company that was spun out of CMU. I believe it got a big check from a16z and then subsequently imploded.

dgacmu 7y ago

It's changing for the better. We raised our seed round here a few months ago with low friction (from valley VCs, not Pittsburgh VCs, but who cares?). We plan to stay Pittsburgh-based for the most part; we and our investors are entirely happy with that.

cdolan 7y ago
Also for Pittsburgh - excited to see what your up to at BrdgAI, good luck!

phendrenad2 7y ago

There's a lot of tech talent, but most employers are dinosaurs stuck in an ancient circa-2004 mindset (check any job listing from Pittsburgh and it'll be a soup of buzzwords from 2004. jQuery abounds. PHP is king. Even the "senior software engineer" job posting at Duolingo asks if you know "DOM" and "AJAX"). Also most jobs are contract, not even contract-to-hire. Some bank or trucking company needs some webforms worked on for a few months, and then you're gone. What's the point of all of this? Well, the hipsterism and average engineer tenure at a single company in silicon valley (which last I heard was 1.5 years) leads to everyone in silicon valley kind of being homogeneous cogs that are interchangeable. 20 years ago we all used PHP, Java, 10 years ago it was Rails and jQuery, and now it's React. I think that Pittsburgh is cut off from the talent here in silicon valley, because if you dropped a React developer into a company there they might as well be a space alien.