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New England has a ton of world-class universities and yet nothing even close to Silicon Valley. The gravity you mention, is the people, and once they start leav
by tharne 6y ago
New England has a ton of world-class universities and yet nothing even close to Silicon Valley. The gravity you mention, is the people, and once they start leaving that "gravity" goes with them.
- nradov 6y agoNew England had something close to (or even superior to) Silicon Valley. Most of the leading minicomputer companies were headquartered in the Boston area, and benefitted from the world-class universities there. But that industry collectively missed disruptive changes from minicomputers to microcomputers, and then the Internet.
- ghaff 6y agoIn fairness, I think that's partly comes from defining "tech" as the stuff that's done in Silicon Valley. SV doesn't have the pharma and biotech that Cambridge has for example. That said, there was something of a shift westward for VC funding and new company formation post the minicomputer era and a lot of the new tech-related employment in the city proper are outposts of west coast companies. (There was basically not a single tech company in Boston proper after Teradyne moved out until the past 20 years or so. The computer companies were all outside; hence "Route 128" companies.)