4 ms·

Champaign/Urbana, IL. Cheap cost of living. Lots of good engineering students on tap. Great community. Great bus service, especially around campus town. Get fro

by jayp 18y ago

Champaign/Urbana, IL. Cheap cost of living. Lots of good engineering students on tap. Great community. Great bus service, especially around campus town. Get from any point A to any point B in town in less than 10 minutes. Plenty of events (athletics, theatre, parties, etc.) due to being a university town. Negatives...corn fields galore. And flatness. And long winters. (This is not a joke. But most will think that it is.)

tptacek 18y ago
And, what, 2 places to work if you need to eat? Forget Champaign. Go to Ann Arbor, MI. You have all the same benefits as Champaign --- a walkable/bikeable city, a huge reservoir of engineering talent, a reasonable cost of living --- but you also have Detroit Metro if you need to pick up freelancing work. Detroit Metro has plenty of BigCo employers outside the big 3. I lived in A2 for 4 years, and while I think Chicago is a better place to start a company, I have lots of good things to say about the place. I have almost nothing good to say about Champaign, which is a bleak, depressing place vindicated only by its proximity to Chicago.
- jayp 18y ago
  You can just beg for good. On a more serious note, I am not basing my opinion on employer choices...even though I argue that there are plenty.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    Name 4.
    - jayp 18y ago
      Intel, Yahoo, Qualcomm, Byte Mobile, Riverbed, Rigerglass, Australian Semiconductor (Motorola spin off), Amdocs, NCSA, Pattern Insight (UIUC research startup), Cazoodle (UIUC research startup), tons of other start ups (Snap and Buy, oneLLama, etc.), at the Univeristy of Illinois itself in IT or research programmer positions. This is just off the top of my head. Anyway, I do not want to enter a piss fight with you. I like C-U. If you don't, great. No one is forcing you to live here. I was merely suggesting it.
      - tptacek 18y ago
        Neither Intel, nor Yahoo, nor Qualcomm appear to be hiring FTE's in Champaign (although I found an Intel temp position). Obviously, I didn't look very hard though. I don't doubt that there's a small constellation of UIUC-affiliated tech startups around Champaign, though the same thing exists in A2, in Austin, and in RTP. The benefit of A2 over Champaign is that you are almost guaranteed freelance (or FTE) work outside the school. I don't think Champaign is a safe career choice compared to A2, RTP, or even Pittsburgh. Sorry, it's a message board, I didn't mean to piss at you.
- dugsong 18y ago
  learn more about Ann Arbor's hacker culture and community at http://a2geeks.org/ http://a2geeks.org/ we're trying to get a bit more organized around here, and be better neighbors to our startup friends in the area (publicizing our events, and partnering with others in the region - e.g. hosting a TechCocktail.com event here in March, and supporting the TechNow09.com event in Royal Oak in April). thanks for the boost, Tom. Zingerman's Roadhouse on me, the next time you're in town. :-)
zitterbewegung 18y ago
Or you can go to Chicago and have many colleges to make friends at (GO to ACM meetings) great community and you can get anywhere on metra / cta. Negatives are the VC funding I guess.
ciscoriordan 18y ago
I like Champaign/Urbana, but it's far from the best place for a startup.

by jayp 18y ago

tptacek 18y ago

And, what, 2 places to work if you need to eat? Forget Champaign. Go to Ann Arbor, MI. You have all the same benefits as Champaign --- a walkable/bikeable city, a huge reservoir of engineering talent, a reasonable cost of living --- but you also have Detroit Metro if you need to pick up freelancing work. Detroit Metro has plenty of BigCo employers outside the big 3. I lived in A2 for 4 years, and while I think Chicago is a better place to start a company, I have lots of good things to say about the place. I have almost nothing good to say about Champaign, which is a bleak, depressing place vindicated only by its proximity to Chicago.

jayp 18y ago
You can just beg for good. On a more serious note, I am not basing my opinion on employer choices...even though I argue that there are plenty.
- tptacek 18y ago
  Name 4.
  - jayp 18y ago
    Intel, Yahoo, Qualcomm, Byte Mobile, Riverbed, Rigerglass, Australian Semiconductor (Motorola spin off), Amdocs, NCSA, Pattern Insight (UIUC research startup), Cazoodle (UIUC research startup), tons of other start ups (Snap and Buy, oneLLama, etc.), at the Univeristy of Illinois itself in IT or research programmer positions. This is just off the top of my head. Anyway, I do not want to enter a piss fight with you. I like C-U. If you don't, great. No one is forcing you to live here. I was merely suggesting it.
    - tptacek 18y ago
      Neither Intel, nor Yahoo, nor Qualcomm appear to be hiring FTE's in Champaign (although I found an Intel temp position). Obviously, I didn't look very hard though. I don't doubt that there's a small constellation of UIUC-affiliated tech startups around Champaign, though the same thing exists in A2, in Austin, and in RTP. The benefit of A2 over Champaign is that you are almost guaranteed freelance (or FTE) work outside the school. I don't think Champaign is a safe career choice compared to A2, RTP, or even Pittsburgh. Sorry, it's a message board, I didn't mean to piss at you.
dugsong 18y ago
learn more about Ann Arbor's hacker culture and community at http://a2geeks.org/ http://a2geeks.org/ we're trying to get a bit more organized around here, and be better neighbors to our startup friends in the area (publicizing our events, and partnering with others in the region - e.g. hosting a TechCocktail.com event here in March, and supporting the TechNow09.com event in Royal Oak in April). thanks for the boost, Tom. Zingerman's Roadhouse on me, the next time you're in town. :-)

zitterbewegung 18y ago

Or you can go to Chicago and have many colleges to make friends at (GO to ACM meetings) great community and you can get anywhere on metra / cta. Negatives are the VC funding I guess.

ciscoriordan 18y ago

I like Champaign/Urbana, but it's far from the best place for a startup.