6 ms·
You could say this of most metros. The most glaring is Boston, which is an international hub for tech education but isn't really competitive with the cities you
by nkozyra 6y ago
You could say this of most metros. The most glaring is Boston, which is an international hub for tech education but isn't really competitive with the cities you list, at least relative to its educational reputation.
When I think of NYC, SF, Austin, Seattle, I think of cities with robust arts/culture/dining/entertainment, accessibility (public transit) and enough professional basis to allow job mobility. These things entice younger people to congregate.
There are other metros that have great education and in particular tech education (Raleigh/Durham, Pittsburgh, Chicago) but don't tend to build up tech industries.
- pratik661 6y agoThats a really good point. Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburg meet the research university criteria. Perhaps a tech center needs temperate weather (hard to convince a new grad to move to Pittsburg vs moving to Austin of Bay Area)? In that case, Atlanta has the weather going for it.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoThe humidity knocks it down a few notches though, in my opinion.
- burnthrow 6y agoBoston is a major tech hub.
- meddlepal 6y agoI mentioned this in a different comment. Its a major tech hub, but not in a way that would be apparent to your average HN software dev. Boston/Cambridge is THE bioengineering hub of the US.
- ghaff 6y agoYeah. SV gets defined mostly as the hub for the sort of tech that it's the hub for. Which is more than a bit self-referential.
- Apocryphon 6y agoTo be fair, SV is also a biotech hub.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ryanchants 6y agoAs a developer in Chicago, I think it's because the finance sector sucks up a lot of the talent, and it's less known for marquee non-finance companies. The city has struggled to promote our tech scene. The company I work for participates in UIUC's City Scholars program[0]. If you work for a company in Chicago, push for them to participate. It introduces the students to Chicago's tech scene. 0: https://cityscholars.engineering.illinois.edu/ https://cityscholars.engineering.illinois.edu/
- toomuchtodo 6y agoTo add to your point, I was made aware of a tech role at a financial firm in downtown Chicago (dev, infra, and infosec experience required); $300k-$400k total comp. Can't compete against that if you're in Chicago and only sourcing Chicago talent.
- selectodude 6y agoCitadel is basically a vacuum cleaner for top-end talent.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jstepka 6y agogoogle is the same. we all win with the services and products these companies offer, and that's why they can do that.
- ghaff 6y agoI hate weather in the southeast generally. I'll take a northern city hands down.
- Hydraulix989 6y agoPittsburgh has an -h at the end.
- finiteseries 6y agoAustin doesn’t fill a single one of those criteria for what it’s worth. I have never lived somewhere with less public transportation, art & culture, dining, and entertainment options than Austin, Texas. And I’ve spent my entire life in the American south. Houston for example of all places, does twice as much on all of those qualities!
- nkozyra 6y ago> art & culture, dining, and entertainment options than Austin, Texas. Buh? I was there less than 2 years but this is a baffling statement to me. edit: except public transportation point.
- runako 6y agoHouston is ~5x the size of Austin. Bigger cities have more options. Houston is also far more diverse, which directly impacts art, culture, and dining specifically. Much of the same about art, culture, and dining also applies to Dallas.
- pbar 6y agoIt’s always surprising to folks, but true, that Houston has a wealth of arts/culture/dining, and even a modicum of public transit (the metro rail, heh). Entertainment could be better, but the rest blow Austin out of the water!
- cwdegidio 6y agoAs a transplant to Houston, I will never understand why Austin became a tech center and Houston has not. There is a lot of raw tech talent here, incubators, etc. No matter what policies are in place or what investments are made, it never seems to take hold.
- nilkn 6y agoAs someone who's spent time in both Austin and Houston, I'd agree with the sentiment that Houston is pretty objectively a much better place to live. These phenomena are probably more driven by superficial appearances, though, and that's where Austin has always had an edge. It's hilly, it's perceived as a college town, and on the surface it has a lot of access to nature. It looks better on the surface than Houston to an observer who hasn't lived in both places. Really, it's just like the Bay Area -- it looks good, but it actually is a very rough and empty place to live for most folks.
- majormajor 6y agoAustin and Seattle are not NYC or SF, and I'm having a hard time seeing how either of them would beat Atlanta for any of those things you mention (I guess they ALL suck at public transit, but I don't see how Seattle sucks less... Austin sucks more!), except they have more first-class tech companies as an accident of history.
- nkozyra 6y agoI think we're seeing a trickle down from SF -> NYC -> Seattle and now Austin. I'd expect this to continue under normal conditions. Companies diving into a new city and trying to foster these conditions in the cheaper costs of a new city. But the pandemic really kicked WFH into overdrive and there are just so many companies abandoning the scope of physical presences.
- meddlepal 6y agoBostons a life sciences hub and basically the only game in town for serious bioengineering. Different ballgame compared to the kind of tech that gets talked about on HN usually which is basically B2B or B2C SaaS.
- reducesuffering 6y agoThere is plenty of biotech HQ'd in the Bay Area to seriously compete with Boston as the #1 spot: 10x Genomics, Guardant Health, Twist, Natera, CareDx, Verily, Invitae, Nevro, Berkeley Lights, Genentech, PacBio, etc.