A lot of people have been predicting a New York tech boom, following the collapse of the financial sector. Here's why I am skeptical: 1. Technology people and

A lot of people have been predicting a New York tech boom, following the collapse of the financial sector. Here's why I am skeptical: 1. Technology people and quants are the least likely to be laid off, because they are the most skilled. IBD/M&A kids will be cut loose, but they're useless from a startup perspective, since no one learns anything in the first 5 years of "soft skills" banking; it's grunt work too low-end to be educational from a business perspective, and the only coding involved is Excel/PowerPoint wizardry. 2. New York's biggest problem, from a startup perspective, is the high cost of housing, leading to a high burn rate. Housing will be "corrected" over time, but this will take years due to the lag, and a lot of tech talent will have bled out of New York in the interim. New York will become stronger as a tech hub, but I'd bet on the Upper Midwest (Chicago, Ann Arbor, Madison, Minneapolis) before New York, since that area has both educated people and a low cost of living.