6 ms·

Could Atlanta Buy A Silicon Valley?

42 points by ivey 18y ago

etal 18y ago
Atlanta feels more like Chicago than SF to me -- the sprawl is worse, the weather is better (but it's certainly not the California coast), and the meathead culture is substantial although I'm not sure I can compare it to Chicago's. The Olympics were a good thing for the downtown area, and there is some government willpower to make it more appealing to entrpreneurs -- notably in biotech. With the CDC, Emory, and Georgia Tech, things could certainly be worse for startups, but I still wouldn't pick Atlanta as a likely new startup hub. The same government support that keeps the city afloat also feels a bit stifling. Poverty in the city center and sprawl everywhere else is depressing. And the general perception of Georgia in the existing startup hubs is even worse than the area actually is; offering a group of hackers $1 million to move to the deep South sounds like a mind game or a social experiment, not a serious offer. Compare: When the last tech bubble burst it seemed like a lot of engineers left the Bay Area and resettled around San Diego. La Jolla has UCSD, a pool of biotech serial entrpreneurs and angels, even better weather than Palo Alto, and decent burritos and pho. Public transportation could be better, and it is getting better. So, it would take some extreme persuasion to keep me from heading right back to the west coast when I finish grad school.
- tptacek 18y ago
  Chicago isn't a sprawl city. San Diego and San Jose definitely are. I don't know what a "meathead culture" is, but your favorite band is more likely to play here than in Atlanta or San Francisco.
  - etal 18y ago
    Sorry, no disrespect intended by the "meathead" phrase -- the edit link is gone now, but I meant whether a city council would rather invest in 1000 startups or a football stadium. Sports seem pretty popular in Chicago and ATL, less so in SF, with SD somewhere in the middle. SF city apparently killed off its own music scene in cold blood during the last decade, but Atlanta's is alive and well right now.
  - evgen 18y ago
    Chicago has much more sprawl than San Jose. The latter is confined somewhat by geography and several open space preserves, while there is apparently nothing to stop the westward migration of Chicago's suburbs. After spending my university years in the Chicago area it was very bizarre to visit last week and realize that you can almost drive from the loop to Rockford without leaving suburbs/exurbs along I80. It is somewhat similar to how Austin and Round Rock used to actually be cities separated by open expanses of empty space and now the trip between the two cities can be navigated just by hopping from one strip mall parking lot to another...
    - tptacek 18y ago
      You had to predict that someone was going to offer up a bespoke definition of "sprawl" to defend San Jose, and there you go. Thanks! First, if you want to define "sprawl" geographically, then the Bay Area and Chicago are almost identical: it's 40.4 miles from the loop to Elgin, and 40.2 miles from the Sunset to Pleasanton. In both cases, that drive is an unbroken parade of suburbs. Second, the conventional definition of "sprawl" is by population density. Chicago's is 12,500/sq mile; 2.8M people live within the borders of the city. San Francisco is more dense, but has only 800,000 people. No valley city even comes close. Finally, your anecdote about the drive to Rockford would apply just as well to NYC --- drive 50 miles in any direction from NYC waiting for the suburbs to stop. Apparently NYC is also a sprawl city. Notice I'm giving you the most favorable possible comparison here, pretending you compared San Francisco to Chicago and not San Jose. Saying "Chicago has much more sprawl than San Jose" is like saying "Chicago has much more sprawl than Oak Brook, IL". San Jose is a suburb with a couple tall buildings, surrounded on all sides by 10-15 miles of flatter suburbs.
      - omnivore 18y ago
        I think public transportation in the NYC area makes the "sprawl" into Jersey, Connecticut or even parts of PA not so bad. Hailing from that region, but living now in the western outskirts of Chicagoland, I can attest to the very strange difference of the sprawl here versus what I'd term as "cohesive" outgrowth in NYC.
quantumhobbit 18y ago
As long as you can drink Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi while coding Atlanta is a great place for Silicon Valley 2. Costs of living are likely far lower than Silicon Valley, so you could become "ramen profitable" sooner. I'm paying $550 a month in rent for a gated townhouse with a 2-car garage right outside the perimeter. You could get plenty of hackers from Georgia Tech who unlike grads from a private school won't have too much debt in student loans. Go Jackets and What's the good Word? Atlanta could certainly improve on its public transportation, but if you live in Midtown you can walk most places. If you are in Tech Square, you can use Georgia Tech's trolly and bus system. Culturally it's hit or miss. At a coffee shop, most of which close too early for a late night caffeine fix, you are more likely to overhear conversations about the latest trend in hip-hop or fashion, but I have seen a few Linux running Eee PCs in the wild.
lacker 18y ago
One big problem with starting businesses in the South is racism and intolerance of outsiders. A key part of Silicon Valley is attracting the best talent from anywhere in the world, and it's going to be hard to do that in Atlanta. For example (from Wikipedia), Atlanta is 2% Asian. San Francisco is 33% Asian. In fact 36% of San Franciscans were born outside the US. edit: I do not mean to say that southern == racist. Far from it. I don't know how to measure racism. But for something like attracting immigrants to a city, perception of racism can be even more important than reality. And I am sure there is at least a common perception that Georgia is unfriendly to Asian immigrants.
- rjurney 18y ago
  Well, sort of. There are large Asian communities in the suburbs between Buford Highway and Duluth, and the Asian population of Georgia Tech (around which most startups are based) is not insignificant. While racism is a problem in the South, thats not going to be an issue for hackers in the city. Quite the opposite: Atlanta is a diverse, tolerant place.
  - lacker 18y ago
    Atlanta is diverse and tolerant by the standards of Georgia, but it is a far cry from California or NYC. Just the perception of the entire South as an unfriendly place for non-white people will prevent many people from moving there. Plus, it is hard to attract immigrants - a lot of smart hacker immigrants would never move to a "red state".
    - rjurney 18y ago
      Right, but I don't think you've actually spent any time in Atlanta, because what you are saying is wrong. I live here, and I've spent time in California, North Carolina, Ohio, all the places you mention and Atlanta is as tolerant as California. Midtown Atlanta is the most gay accepting place outside of West Hollywood or the Castro, and if you think there is a shortage of Asians here you've obviously never been here. You're just projecting your own prejudices. You don't know anything about Atlanta.
jraines 18y ago
I heard that Atlantic Station condos are going for bargain basement prices right now (a friend is hoping to sell for a 60K loss) -- walk to movies, food, and groceries and bike to Tech Square. It's tempting to think of what living in Atlanta could be without its defining characteristic (godawful traffic). Without going into all the other factors, Atlanta does have the necessary condition -- a concentration of smart people.
- jackowayed 18y ago
  I think the Bay Area has proven that godawful traffic and being a startup hub are far from mutually exclusive.
sachinag 18y ago
There's a bizarre concentration of supply chain management software companies in Alpharetta. Those guys could be the angel investor base I harp on.
- martianpenguin 18y ago
  How is it bizarre to have a high concentration of supply chain management software companies next to the best school in the country for ISYE?
  - sachinag 18y ago
    Wait, what's ISYE? There's actually a logical reason? I figured it was just a happy accident. That's awesome.
    - martianpenguin 18y ago
      http://www.isye.gatech.edu/ http://www.isye.gatech.edu/
    - rms 18y ago
      Industrial and Systems Engineering -- Industrial engineering is the degree program that generally encompasses supply chain management, though it is also covered by technical MBA programs, particularly those at universities without degree programs in industrial engineering.
      - sanjayparekh 18y ago
        Don't forget that having UPS as an Atlanta based company has helped in creating logistics oriented companies here. That plus Memphis (home to FedEx) isn't that far either.
lanceweatherby 18y ago
I don't know how in the heck an article answering the questions that PG posed turned into a string of comments about racism and calling people meatheads. But since someone opened the door and let the big elephant in the room, I am going to go ahead and admit that it's standing there. The sub-culture of technology startups is dominated by white males. Minorities are not represented at the same proportion of their general population percentages anywhere in the country. I am not saying its right and we should all work to correct the issue. But it is. Look at the YC companies. Look at the TechCunch50. Look at Demo. Saying that it's just Atlanta is unfounded stereotyping. It would be much more beneficial to discuss Atlanta and other cities on the criteria that PG laid out. In my article I pointed out that Atlanta could be more tolerant. The city is not alone.
- charlesju 18y ago
  I am an Asian American, doing a startup in Silicon Valley, and I have not experienced discrimination because of the color of my skin. There are plenty of Asian American CEOs, Angels, and VCs everywhere. Perhaps, if anything, a little disproportionate to the true percentage of Asian Americans in California.
  - jackowayed 18y ago
    I think Asian is the one main exception to that rule, just as it's the exception when it comes to minorities in elite colleges. Asian Americans don't have as much of a history of economic and political oppression (There was some, obviously, especially during WWII.), and the culture strongly encourages working hard to excel at school, helping them then get good educations and break out of the initial poverty cycles that formed when Asians first came over and were exploited by railroad companies and the like. But if you look at startups for other minorities--Hispanics, African Americans--I think it is pretty true that they are not well-represented.
    - nopassrecover 18y ago
      I have no idea about the situation in the US but could this be due to other factors? For instance, you mention that these minorities are under represented in certain colleges to begin with - a place where a lot of startups begin. Perhaps there is less internet exposure too, or at least to the startup community blogs etc.. And maybe it just comes down to a perpetuating loop situation. In any case, and I don't really know US attitudes, but I would doubt in this day and age there is a conscious effort among hackers, who are generally more liberty and equality focused anyway, to exclude people based on anything other than merit.
carolscott 18y ago
..having lived in both SFO for years and Atl for years, my view is that CA is much more racist if you're not white or Asian and that's just a fact...the "good ole boys" club is alive and growing in the Atl however...
jhaynie 18y ago
I probably shouldn't even delve into commenting on a stream that has turned a positive blog article into "atlanta is racist". strange. I grew up in Atlanta but have lived in Chicago, Washington state, Florida and Tokyo, Japan. I now live in Mountain View, California in the heart of the valley. Atlanta is a great place to live, raise a family and has its own unique tech/geek/startup culture. It's hard to compare the valley to Atlanta - but that's true with any other location on the planet. Silicon Valley is unique and difficult to replicate. These types of "centers" happen because of aggregation of people and resources. Nashville has an aggregation that supports country music, Atlanta has hip-hop, LA has Hollywood, D.C. has politics and NYC still is the financial capital of the world. Silicon Valley is just the technology capital of the world. With any rule, you have exceptions - plenty of great technology companies come out of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and Denver (just to name a few). What Atlanta and all other places should focus on isn't how to replicate the valley - but instead, how to create their own unique place which highlights and rewards their own achievements and strengths. It will take a lot of constituents to make that happen - entrepreneurs, investors, law makers and educators. One stark contrast that might be worth exploring is the difference between the Valley and other locations is reinvestment through the social contract. In the Valley, there is a very strong sense of a social contract from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs (and investors to entrepreneurs). I feel a much stronger sense of success which breeds more success (or help, resources, guidance and mentorship). In fact, anecdotally, it seems like way more entrepreneurs "who make it big" in the valley, attempt to repeat - either directly in their own subsequent startups or minimally through very active advising and investment in younger upstarts. I would contrast that to Atlanta where I believe that's more of the exception than the norm. (Plenty of people have such as John Imlay, Mitch Free, Alan Graber, Tom Noonon, just to name a few). My own personal assessment is that it might be because there are (a) fewer very large exits in Atlanta, (b) it's easier to retire with less money in Atlanta and (c) there's no peer pressure to do it again. Recently, however, I'm very encouraged by all of the entrepreneurs that have decided to take things into their own hands. Atlanta knows who they are (Lance Weatherby, Scott Burkett, Sanjay Parekh and all the guys at Shotput Ventures like David Cummings and Mitch Free). I've long said it's the entrepreneurs that will "save Atlanta" -- if there is such as thing that people believe is necessary. I'm very much rooting for Atlanta. Not to become yet-another-failed-silicon-valley replication attempt. Wow, gives a f* about that. I'm rooting for Atlanta to become it's own identity: something more powerful, more creative, more sustainable and more unique. Something that people say: "you can only do that in Atlanta".
sanjayparekh 18y ago
I probably shouldn't chime in but since my name was brought up a couple of times I feel compelled. Yeah, I'm Indian. Yeah I'm American too (born and raised in Kentucky). Is there prejudice in the world? Yeah, sure. Have I experienced prejudice/racism? Of course - and not just in Georgia or Kentucky but all over the world. Does it matter one bit (at least to me)? Nope. Anyone that shows prejudice (based on race or otherwise) is someone I don't need to be friends with, do business with, or interact with. I've never felt like a customer wouldn't buy because of some racial prejudice or an investor wouldn't invest because of the same. If they did, would I even want to do business with someone so small minded? No, I wouldn't. Starting a company is hard. It doesn't matter if you don't have one hurdle or another - there are a lot of obstacles to a successful liquidity event. Entrepreneurship isn't a path where success is guaranteed. If it were, everyone would do it. So my point is this - sure, prejudice may exist and you may think it will hinder you from succeeding. So what? No one said this was going to be easy. On the contrary, the large potential rewards upon success all but determine that it will be very, very difficult to achieve (go read an economics book if you don't get the reasoning as to why). So just get to work, start your company, and be successful. This stuff is all noise and if it derails you - you need to become a better entrepreneur/leader rather than complain that someone kept you from succeeding.
- brianculler 18y ago
  What I find the most ridiculous about the comments in this thread about the "prejudice" people have experienced in Atlanta is that the prejudice cited was coming from places like... people on marta trains. Really? What people on a subway say to you has a bearing on a startup? If we're going to have a discussion about having a startup in Atlanta, we should be evaluating the racism and prejudice that exists within the community that a startup would actually deal with on a day to day basis. The people that actually matter, the people that would have an effect on your startup. The business people, the technical talent, the fellow entrepreneurs. Not people on marta trains. So yeah, to back up your final point: what racist bigots on subway trains say to you should be thrown into the "noise" bucket, no matter where you are or what you're doing.
  - deleted 18y ago
decius 18y ago
I've lived in both cities. A few points: 1. Quality of life in Atlanta is good enough that smart people could be convinced to move here. Its warm, there are good restaurants, there is good shopping, there are funky neighborhoods and bars, its a short drive down to nice beaches where the water is actually warm enough to swim in. Hell, I've been snowboarding 4 weekends so far this season within a few hours of town. It does not have a national reputation for being ultra-hip, but as I said in the other thread, I don't think that matters. In fact, around the turn of the century (am I allowed to say that yet) neighborhoods in SF that were hip and trendy and neighborhoods in SF that were dripping in startup money were mutually exclusive, and being anyway associated with the tech industry was just about the most uncool thing you could possible be there even though everybody was. 2. There are some people who wouldn't move to Atlanta, for reasons that are both reasonable and unreasonable. However, the same thing can be said about San Francisco. Some people will not move there because they don't like the culture or they are worried that they are going to die in an Earthquake. Atlanta does have an undercurrent of racism and that does bare repeating. But its not a death knell for the city as a center for innovation. We have a very diverse community here who can work together and produce great companies. 3. Atlanta has a vibrant, multifaceted nerd scene with various strong universities, technical user groups, cons, parties, mailing lists, web sites, facebook groups, etc. In fact I find it far easier to get networked in with other nerds here than in San Francisco, where scenes tend to be a bit more snobbish, exclusive, and corrupted by the presence of wealth. There are some things I wish were going on here that aren't, such as a genuine hacker space, but in general the "scene" here is strong and growing stronger at a regular pace. 4. In addition to the aforementioned nerd scene, I think the things that matter are the right legal framework for innovation (which I explained in the other thread, and I do not agree that the differences are trivial particularly with regard to intellectual property laws), and a supportive environment of investors and incubators. The later seems to be improving, but unfortunately the stock market crash has made everything more difficult. 5. I strongly agree with jhaynie that Atlanta has got to look at its individual technical strengths. There are certain technical communities that are particularly strong here. Innovation is not about copying San Francisco - its about leading, on the world stage, in terms of the direction we need to take technology. For example, this is a time when every business in world is asking itself how it can reduce its costs. Our concentration of industrial engineers may have new answers to that question that you aren't going to get out of Palo Alto.
pg 18y ago
Man. I go off and work on something else for a couple hours, and I come back to find the bicycle shed on fire...
- lanceweatherby 18y ago
  It's not on fire. It has turned into a healthy discussion. What I am hearing is that lots of hackers have issue with moving to ATL due to perceptions with tolerance. Fair enough. Now if we ever started writing $1 million checks it would be interesting to see how people would vote with their feet. In my day job I get inquires from all over the world from people that would move to Georgia for a little help. Thanks for the article that inspired me and the spirited discussion.
chaostheory 18y ago
Having lived in the ATL for about 8 years and the Bay Area for 5, I'd have to strongly disagree with one of the article's points: "1) Do you have good weather?" Atlanta does not have good weather. It is either really cold or really hot. It is nothing like the Bay Area's year round temperate weather. During the fall and winter, Atlanta is typically gloomy and overcast almost every day. It's cold enough to ice too... I still remember feeling stupid for not wearing ear muffs or a hood walking across Tech's campus; it felt like my ears were going to fall off. Gloves are good idea too unless you want your hands goin dead. During the spring and summer, it is very sunny but it is also really hot. Though not as bad as Florida, there are days where you can just walk for a 1/2 hour outside and be drenched in sweat. Air conditioning is a must, and your electric bill will reflect that.
- rjurney 18y ago
  Its relative. The continental US has huge variance in weather and Atlanta's weather is comparatively mild to most places. Our winter lows are between 10-20F, and not on very many days. It snows only once every year or two. Few people wouldn't move to Atlanta because of the weather. Now compare that to... Montana, or Maine. Or Seattle, for that matter. We have lots of New York transplants in Atlanta, and they love our weather :) A bit off topic but... at least in Florida you can beat the heat in the ocean :) P.S. It rained a foot, then snowed a foot at my house in Georgia the last 2 days.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

42 points by ivey 18y ago

etal 18y ago

Atlanta feels more like Chicago than SF to me -- the sprawl is worse, the weather is better (but it's certainly not the California coast), and the meathead culture is substantial although I'm not sure I can compare it to Chicago's. The Olympics were a good thing for the downtown area, and there is some government willpower to make it more appealing to entrpreneurs -- notably in biotech. With the CDC, Emory, and Georgia Tech, things could certainly be worse for startups, but I still wouldn't pick Atlanta as a likely new startup hub. The same government support that keeps the city afloat also feels a bit stifling. Poverty in the city center and sprawl everywhere else is depressing. And the general perception of Georgia in the existing startup hubs is even worse than the area actually is; offering a group of hackers $1 million to move to the deep South sounds like a mind game or a social experiment, not a serious offer. Compare: When the last tech bubble burst it seemed like a lot of engineers left the Bay Area and resettled around San Diego. La Jolla has UCSD, a pool of biotech serial entrpreneurs and angels, even better weather than Palo Alto, and decent burritos and pho. Public transportation could be better, and it is getting better. So, it would take some extreme persuasion to keep me from heading right back to the west coast when I finish grad school.

tptacek 18y ago
Chicago isn't a sprawl city. San Diego and San Jose definitely are. I don't know what a "meathead culture" is, but your favorite band is more likely to play here than in Atlanta or San Francisco.
- etal 18y ago
  Sorry, no disrespect intended by the "meathead" phrase -- the edit link is gone now, but I meant whether a city council would rather invest in 1000 startups or a football stadium. Sports seem pretty popular in Chicago and ATL, less so in SF, with SD somewhere in the middle. SF city apparently killed off its own music scene in cold blood during the last decade, but Atlanta's is alive and well right now.
- evgen 18y ago
  Chicago has much more sprawl than San Jose. The latter is confined somewhat by geography and several open space preserves, while there is apparently nothing to stop the westward migration of Chicago's suburbs. After spending my university years in the Chicago area it was very bizarre to visit last week and realize that you can almost drive from the loop to Rockford without leaving suburbs/exurbs along I80. It is somewhat similar to how Austin and Round Rock used to actually be cities separated by open expanses of empty space and now the trip between the two cities can be navigated just by hopping from one strip mall parking lot to another...
  - tptacek 18y ago
    You had to predict that someone was going to offer up a bespoke definition of "sprawl" to defend San Jose, and there you go. Thanks! First, if you want to define "sprawl" geographically, then the Bay Area and Chicago are almost identical: it's 40.4 miles from the loop to Elgin, and 40.2 miles from the Sunset to Pleasanton. In both cases, that drive is an unbroken parade of suburbs. Second, the conventional definition of "sprawl" is by population density. Chicago's is 12,500/sq mile; 2.8M people live within the borders of the city. San Francisco is more dense, but has only 800,000 people. No valley city even comes close. Finally, your anecdote about the drive to Rockford would apply just as well to NYC --- drive 50 miles in any direction from NYC waiting for the suburbs to stop. Apparently NYC is also a sprawl city. Notice I'm giving you the most favorable possible comparison here, pretending you compared San Francisco to Chicago and not San Jose. Saying "Chicago has much more sprawl than San Jose" is like saying "Chicago has much more sprawl than Oak Brook, IL". San Jose is a suburb with a couple tall buildings, surrounded on all sides by 10-15 miles of flatter suburbs.
    - omnivore 18y ago
      I think public transportation in the NYC area makes the "sprawl" into Jersey, Connecticut or even parts of PA not so bad. Hailing from that region, but living now in the western outskirts of Chicagoland, I can attest to the very strange difference of the sprawl here versus what I'd term as "cohesive" outgrowth in NYC.

quantumhobbit 18y ago

As long as you can drink Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi while coding Atlanta is a great place for Silicon Valley 2. Costs of living are likely far lower than Silicon Valley, so you could become "ramen profitable" sooner. I'm paying $550 a month in rent for a gated townhouse with a 2-car garage right outside the perimeter. You could get plenty of hackers from Georgia Tech who unlike grads from a private school won't have too much debt in student loans. Go Jackets and What's the good Word? Atlanta could certainly improve on its public transportation, but if you live in Midtown you can walk most places. If you are in Tech Square, you can use Georgia Tech's trolly and bus system. Culturally it's hit or miss. At a coffee shop, most of which close too early for a late night caffeine fix, you are more likely to overhear conversations about the latest trend in hip-hop or fashion, but I have seen a few Linux running Eee PCs in the wild.

lacker 18y ago

One big problem with starting businesses in the South is racism and intolerance of outsiders. A key part of Silicon Valley is attracting the best talent from anywhere in the world, and it's going to be hard to do that in Atlanta. For example (from Wikipedia), Atlanta is 2% Asian. San Francisco is 33% Asian. In fact 36% of San Franciscans were born outside the US. edit: I do not mean to say that southern == racist. Far from it. I don't know how to measure racism. But for something like attracting immigrants to a city, perception of racism can be even more important than reality. And I am sure there is at least a common perception that Georgia is unfriendly to Asian immigrants.

rjurney 18y ago
Well, sort of. There are large Asian communities in the suburbs between Buford Highway and Duluth, and the Asian population of Georgia Tech (around which most startups are based) is not insignificant. While racism is a problem in the South, thats not going to be an issue for hackers in the city. Quite the opposite: Atlanta is a diverse, tolerant place.
- lacker 18y ago
  Atlanta is diverse and tolerant by the standards of Georgia, but it is a far cry from California or NYC. Just the perception of the entire South as an unfriendly place for non-white people will prevent many people from moving there. Plus, it is hard to attract immigrants - a lot of smart hacker immigrants would never move to a "red state".
  - rjurney 18y ago
    Right, but I don't think you've actually spent any time in Atlanta, because what you are saying is wrong. I live here, and I've spent time in California, North Carolina, Ohio, all the places you mention and Atlanta is as tolerant as California. Midtown Atlanta is the most gay accepting place outside of West Hollywood or the Castro, and if you think there is a shortage of Asians here you've obviously never been here. You're just projecting your own prejudices. You don't know anything about Atlanta.

jraines 18y ago

I heard that Atlantic Station condos are going for bargain basement prices right now (a friend is hoping to sell for a 60K loss) -- walk to movies, food, and groceries and bike to Tech Square. It's tempting to think of what living in Atlanta could be without its defining characteristic (godawful traffic). Without going into all the other factors, Atlanta does have the necessary condition -- a concentration of smart people.

jackowayed 18y ago
I think the Bay Area has proven that godawful traffic and being a startup hub are far from mutually exclusive.

sachinag 18y ago

There's a bizarre concentration of supply chain management software companies in Alpharetta. Those guys could be the angel investor base I harp on.

martianpenguin 18y ago
How is it bizarre to have a high concentration of supply chain management software companies next to the best school in the country for ISYE?
- sachinag 18y ago
  Wait, what's ISYE? There's actually a logical reason? I figured it was just a happy accident. That's awesome.
  - martianpenguin 18y ago
    http://www.isye.gatech.edu/ http://www.isye.gatech.edu/
  - rms 18y ago
    Industrial and Systems Engineering -- Industrial engineering is the degree program that generally encompasses supply chain management, though it is also covered by technical MBA programs, particularly those at universities without degree programs in industrial engineering.
    - sanjayparekh 18y ago
      Don't forget that having UPS as an Atlanta based company has helped in creating logistics oriented companies here. That plus Memphis (home to FedEx) isn't that far either.

lanceweatherby 18y ago

I don't know how in the heck an article answering the questions that PG posed turned into a string of comments about racism and calling people meatheads. But since someone opened the door and let the big elephant in the room, I am going to go ahead and admit that it's standing there. The sub-culture of technology startups is dominated by white males. Minorities are not represented at the same proportion of their general population percentages anywhere in the country. I am not saying its right and we should all work to correct the issue. But it is. Look at the YC companies. Look at the TechCunch50. Look at Demo. Saying that it's just Atlanta is unfounded stereotyping. It would be much more beneficial to discuss Atlanta and other cities on the criteria that PG laid out. In my article I pointed out that Atlanta could be more tolerant. The city is not alone.

charlesju 18y ago
I am an Asian American, doing a startup in Silicon Valley, and I have not experienced discrimination because of the color of my skin. There are plenty of Asian American CEOs, Angels, and VCs everywhere. Perhaps, if anything, a little disproportionate to the true percentage of Asian Americans in California.
- jackowayed 18y ago
  I think Asian is the one main exception to that rule, just as it's the exception when it comes to minorities in elite colleges. Asian Americans don't have as much of a history of economic and political oppression (There was some, obviously, especially during WWII.), and the culture strongly encourages working hard to excel at school, helping them then get good educations and break out of the initial poverty cycles that formed when Asians first came over and were exploited by railroad companies and the like. But if you look at startups for other minorities--Hispanics, African Americans--I think it is pretty true that they are not well-represented.
  - nopassrecover 18y ago
    I have no idea about the situation in the US but could this be due to other factors? For instance, you mention that these minorities are under represented in certain colleges to begin with - a place where a lot of startups begin. Perhaps there is less internet exposure too, or at least to the startup community blogs etc.. And maybe it just comes down to a perpetuating loop situation. In any case, and I don't really know US attitudes, but I would doubt in this day and age there is a conscious effort among hackers, who are generally more liberty and equality focused anyway, to exclude people based on anything other than merit.

carolscott 18y ago

..having lived in both SFO for years and Atl for years, my view is that CA is much more racist if you're not white or Asian and that's just a fact...the "good ole boys" club is alive and growing in the Atl however...

jhaynie 18y ago

I probably shouldn't even delve into commenting on a stream that has turned a positive blog article into "atlanta is racist". strange. I grew up in Atlanta but have lived in Chicago, Washington state, Florida and Tokyo, Japan. I now live in Mountain View, California in the heart of the valley. Atlanta is a great place to live, raise a family and has its own unique tech/geek/startup culture. It's hard to compare the valley to Atlanta - but that's true with any other location on the planet. Silicon Valley is unique and difficult to replicate. These types of "centers" happen because of aggregation of people and resources. Nashville has an aggregation that supports country music, Atlanta has hip-hop, LA has Hollywood, D.C. has politics and NYC still is the financial capital of the world. Silicon Valley is just the technology capital of the world. With any rule, you have exceptions - plenty of great technology companies come out of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and Denver (just to name a few). What Atlanta and all other places should focus on isn't how to replicate the valley - but instead, how to create their own unique place which highlights and rewards their own achievements and strengths. It will take a lot of constituents to make that happen - entrepreneurs, investors, law makers and educators. One stark contrast that might be worth exploring is the difference between the Valley and other locations is reinvestment through the social contract. In the Valley, there is a very strong sense of a social contract from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs (and investors to entrepreneurs). I feel a much stronger sense of success which breeds more success (or help, resources, guidance and mentorship). In fact, anecdotally, it seems like way more entrepreneurs "who make it big" in the valley, attempt to repeat - either directly in their own subsequent startups or minimally through very active advising and investment in younger upstarts. I would contrast that to Atlanta where I believe that's more of the exception than the norm. (Plenty of people have such as John Imlay, Mitch Free, Alan Graber, Tom Noonon, just to name a few). My own personal assessment is that it might be because there are (a) fewer very large exits in Atlanta, (b) it's easier to retire with less money in Atlanta and (c) there's no peer pressure to do it again. Recently, however, I'm very encouraged by all of the entrepreneurs that have decided to take things into their own hands. Atlanta knows who they are (Lance Weatherby, Scott Burkett, Sanjay Parekh and all the guys at Shotput Ventures like David Cummings and Mitch Free). I've long said it's the entrepreneurs that will "save Atlanta" -- if there is such as thing that people believe is necessary. I'm very much rooting for Atlanta. Not to become yet-another-failed-silicon-valley replication attempt. Wow, gives a f* about that. I'm rooting for Atlanta to become it's own identity: something more powerful, more creative, more sustainable and more unique. Something that people say: "you can only do that in Atlanta".

sanjayparekh 18y ago

I probably shouldn't chime in but since my name was brought up a couple of times I feel compelled. Yeah, I'm Indian. Yeah I'm American too (born and raised in Kentucky). Is there prejudice in the world? Yeah, sure. Have I experienced prejudice/racism? Of course - and not just in Georgia or Kentucky but all over the world. Does it matter one bit (at least to me)? Nope. Anyone that shows prejudice (based on race or otherwise) is someone I don't need to be friends with, do business with, or interact with. I've never felt like a customer wouldn't buy because of some racial prejudice or an investor wouldn't invest because of the same. If they did, would I even want to do business with someone so small minded? No, I wouldn't. Starting a company is hard. It doesn't matter if you don't have one hurdle or another - there are a lot of obstacles to a successful liquidity event. Entrepreneurship isn't a path where success is guaranteed. If it were, everyone would do it. So my point is this - sure, prejudice may exist and you may think it will hinder you from succeeding. So what? No one said this was going to be easy. On the contrary, the large potential rewards upon success all but determine that it will be very, very difficult to achieve (go read an economics book if you don't get the reasoning as to why). So just get to work, start your company, and be successful. This stuff is all noise and if it derails you - you need to become a better entrepreneur/leader rather than complain that someone kept you from succeeding.

brianculler 18y ago
What I find the most ridiculous about the comments in this thread about the "prejudice" people have experienced in Atlanta is that the prejudice cited was coming from places like... people on marta trains. Really? What people on a subway say to you has a bearing on a startup? If we're going to have a discussion about having a startup in Atlanta, we should be evaluating the racism and prejudice that exists within the community that a startup would actually deal with on a day to day basis. The people that actually matter, the people that would have an effect on your startup. The business people, the technical talent, the fellow entrepreneurs. Not people on marta trains. So yeah, to back up your final point: what racist bigots on subway trains say to you should be thrown into the "noise" bucket, no matter where you are or what you're doing.
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decius 18y ago

I've lived in both cities. A few points: 1. Quality of life in Atlanta is good enough that smart people could be convinced to move here. Its warm, there are good restaurants, there is good shopping, there are funky neighborhoods and bars, its a short drive down to nice beaches where the water is actually warm enough to swim in. Hell, I've been snowboarding 4 weekends so far this season within a few hours of town. It does not have a national reputation for being ultra-hip, but as I said in the other thread, I don't think that matters. In fact, around the turn of the century (am I allowed to say that yet) neighborhoods in SF that were hip and trendy and neighborhoods in SF that were dripping in startup money were mutually exclusive, and being anyway associated with the tech industry was just about the most uncool thing you could possible be there even though everybody was. 2. There are some people who wouldn't move to Atlanta, for reasons that are both reasonable and unreasonable. However, the same thing can be said about San Francisco. Some people will not move there because they don't like the culture or they are worried that they are going to die in an Earthquake. Atlanta does have an undercurrent of racism and that does bare repeating. But its not a death knell for the city as a center for innovation. We have a very diverse community here who can work together and produce great companies. 3. Atlanta has a vibrant, multifaceted nerd scene with various strong universities, technical user groups, cons, parties, mailing lists, web sites, facebook groups, etc. In fact I find it far easier to get networked in with other nerds here than in San Francisco, where scenes tend to be a bit more snobbish, exclusive, and corrupted by the presence of wealth. There are some things I wish were going on here that aren't, such as a genuine hacker space, but in general the "scene" here is strong and growing stronger at a regular pace. 4. In addition to the aforementioned nerd scene, I think the things that matter are the right legal framework for innovation (which I explained in the other thread, and I do not agree that the differences are trivial particularly with regard to intellectual property laws), and a supportive environment of investors and incubators. The later seems to be improving, but unfortunately the stock market crash has made everything more difficult. 5. I strongly agree with jhaynie that Atlanta has got to look at its individual technical strengths. There are certain technical communities that are particularly strong here. Innovation is not about copying San Francisco - its about leading, on the world stage, in terms of the direction we need to take technology. For example, this is a time when every business in world is asking itself how it can reduce its costs. Our concentration of industrial engineers may have new answers to that question that you aren't going to get out of Palo Alto.

pg 18y ago

Man. I go off and work on something else for a couple hours, and I come back to find the bicycle shed on fire...

lanceweatherby 18y ago
It's not on fire. It has turned into a healthy discussion. What I am hearing is that lots of hackers have issue with moving to ATL due to perceptions with tolerance. Fair enough. Now if we ever started writing $1 million checks it would be interesting to see how people would vote with their feet. In my day job I get inquires from all over the world from people that would move to Georgia for a little help. Thanks for the article that inspired me and the spirited discussion.

chaostheory 18y ago

Having lived in the ATL for about 8 years and the Bay Area for 5, I'd have to strongly disagree with one of the article's points: "1) Do you have good weather?" Atlanta does not have good weather. It is either really cold or really hot. It is nothing like the Bay Area's year round temperate weather. During the fall and winter, Atlanta is typically gloomy and overcast almost every day. It's cold enough to ice too... I still remember feeling stupid for not wearing ear muffs or a hood walking across Tech's campus; it felt like my ears were going to fall off. Gloves are good idea too unless you want your hands goin dead. During the spring and summer, it is very sunny but it is also really hot. Though not as bad as Florida, there are days where you can just walk for a 1/2 hour outside and be drenched in sweat. Air conditioning is a must, and your electric bill will reflect that.

rjurney 18y ago
Its relative. The continental US has huge variance in weather and Atlanta's weather is comparatively mild to most places. Our winter lows are between 10-20F, and not on very many days. It snows only once every year or two. Few people wouldn't move to Atlanta because of the weather. Now compare that to... Montana, or Maine. Or Seattle, for that matter. We have lots of New York transplants in Atlanta, and they love our weather :) A bit off topic but... at least in Florida you can beat the heat in the ocean :) P.S. It rained a foot, then snowed a foot at my house in Georgia the last 2 days.

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