4 ms·

The reason all the money is in 3 cities is actually really simple... NY, SF, Boston > Every other city in America I'll admit that those cities are not for eve

The reason all the money is in 3 cities is actually really simple... NY, SF, Boston > Every other city in America I'll admit that those cities are not for everyone, but they are irreplaceable for most people that live in them. If you make enough money to live in one of those cities, the lifestyle cannot be replicated outside of those cities. VCs can choose where they want to live, most of them choose tier 1 cities. Talent also chooses tier 1 cities so the collocation benefits everyone.

michaelochurch 14y ago
I'll admit that those cities are not for everyone, but they are irreplaceable for most people that live in them. If you make enough money to live in one of those cities, the lifestyle cannot be replicated outside of those cities. What about Chicago? Great city, not as expensive; problem is, not much VC money. I would rather the worst thing about where I live be called "January" than have it be called "rent". VCs can choose where they want to live, most of them choose tier 1 cities. Talent also chooses tier 1 cities so the collocation benefits everyone. Talent doesn't get as much "choice" as HN likes to believe. Sure, good programmers get solicitations for jobs all the time, but often that's just an invitation to waste time on a phone screen, spend six hours on a code test (because you actually care about doing things right) and then get rejected because your choice of language (for the test) fell on the wrong side of that company's ever-shifting internal language wars. Or it's an invitation to work at some startup with shitty cargo-cult culture that'll fire you at 4 months with no severance if you don't go to the strip club with the other brogrammers. Good jobs are goddamn rare and hard to find no matter who you are. Talent should have the kind of leverage that HN believes it does, but right now, 90+ percent of talented people are poors who still need to adapt to bosses and market trends and landlords.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  Yeah, Chicago is good too. The winters there are worse than Boston, and as someone living in Boston, I'm not sure I can deal with much worse. Also, DC is pretty good too. Arguably, NY and SF are far better than Boston, and you could probably safely lump Boston in with Chicago and DC as far as desirability. I agree with you that talent doesn't have as much leverage as they think they do. Good jobs are nearly impossible to find. That is why living in a great city is so important. Talent will never have the type of leverage HN believes it does except for in rare individuals who have built social credit along with their skills.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Good jobs are nearly impossible to find. That is why living in a great city is so important. Talent will never have the type of leverage HN believes it does except for in rare individuals who have built social credit along with their skills. Now that I'm almost 30 and aware of my mortality (my mother passed away recently, which had more to do with my "mid-life crisis" than chronological age, since I'm still quite young by the standard outside of Wall Street and VC-istan) I'm starting to wonder about the best way to change this. How do we take this garbage-pile of an industry and fix it? How do we clear away the crap and build something we can be proud of? Social trends are such that we're on track for a violent worldwide revolution (widespread, permanent un(der)+employment will be the norm by 2030) unless we fix our society in a major way (basic income, necessitated by said underemployment) but we also have the tools available to be smart and not burn/kill our way to a better world. We don't need to overthrow the corporate bastards with force (at least, I hope we don't; the problem with real-world holy wars is that the unholy have guns and better aim) because with technology we can outperform them. We should take this opportunity to rewrite all the assumptions, if we can.
    - wtvanhest 14y ago
      I wouldn't count on the violent worldwide revolution. History has not been kind to the massive number of people who consistently predict it while saying "this time its different!" As far as your first question... who knows? One thing I know for certain, it doesn't matter what you do, or how you do it, there will be trade-offs, always. As a much older than you... 30 year old, I've come to sort of just enjoy what I can and brush off the unpleasant stuff while I keep up with a rigorous search for knowledge and improved skills. I'm certain that opportunities will present themselves, and I'm positioning to always be ready to take advantage of them. Fulfillment for me partially comes from the knowledge and skills gained. I know that I will have a high level of achievement over my career and because I am confident it will all work out, I am relaxed while I push myself. In 2 years, maybe I'll have a totally different outlook? I guess that is the fun of the whole thing.
- rdouble 14y ago
  What about Chicago? Or it's an invitation to work at some startup with shitty cargo-cult culture that'll fire you at 4 months with no severance if you don't go to the strip club with the other brogrammers. Chicago is ok but be aware that it's bro central if that's something you are trying to avoid.
  - hugs 14y ago
    There are plenty of non-bros in Chicago. I live in Chicago, and have no problem successfully avoiding them.
    - rdouble 14y ago
      Yes, but it's different than in say, SF Bay or Portland where you don't have to say you "successfully avoided" them. You have to go out of your way to find the bros. That said, bros in Chicago are probably in about the same concentration as Boston or Manhattan.
hugs 14y ago
I choose to live in Chicago, but have lived in NY and the Bay Area. SF and NYC are awesome and I love to travel! :-) But I choose Chicago for a lower cost of living, which means my personal financial runway is longer, which means I can take more risks career/product-wise. And, I love Chicago. But I don't buy the argument that residence is destiny. I choose to live by Steve Martin's famous line: "Be so good they can't ignore you." When you're really good, it doesn't matter where you live. I'm not saying I'm that good, but I am saying I strive to focus on the work, not on where I do it. If a potential investor won't invest because I'm not in NY, SF, or whereever, fuck 'em.
- tmo9d 14y ago
  If you are really good at what you do, and if you understand how real startups work, it becomes clear that location is the most irrelevant factor to success. I second Jason's views. If someone isn't going to work with you because you refuse to move to South End, Mountain View, or Brooklyn, then they can go fuck themselves. I travel to these places quite a bit though, and I love having a career that brings me to both coasts often. The Midwest is the perfect place for a startup. Now that being said, Chicago has an entertaining startup scene. Entertaining in that I feel like they are trying too hard to be like San Franscisco.
mjn 14y ago
From what I can tell, VCs don't care much for SF as a place to live. They do like the Valley, though. They live in places like Atherton and Palo Alto. It's the young employees who live in the Mission. It's true that the extended area has significant appeal, but I'm not sure it's due to its niceness as a place to live, so much as just that it's where the action is, for historical reasons dating back to the '50s.
- FelixP 14y ago
  I think most people prefer SF, but VCs tend to be older and thus prefer locations with more space to raise families (e.g. Palo Alto, Marin, etc.)

michaelochurch 14y ago

I'll admit that those cities are not for everyone, but they are irreplaceable for most people that live in them. If you make enough money to live in one of those cities, the lifestyle cannot be replicated outside of those cities. What about Chicago? Great city, not as expensive; problem is, not much VC money. I would rather the worst thing about where I live be called "January" than have it be called "rent". VCs can choose where they want to live, most of them choose tier 1 cities. Talent also chooses tier 1 cities so the collocation benefits everyone. Talent doesn't get as much "choice" as HN likes to believe. Sure, good programmers get solicitations for jobs all the time, but often that's just an invitation to waste time on a phone screen, spend six hours on a code test (because you actually care about doing things right) and then get rejected because your choice of language (for the test) fell on the wrong side of that company's ever-shifting internal language wars. Or it's an invitation to work at some startup with shitty cargo-cult culture that'll fire you at 4 months with no severance if you don't go to the strip club with the other brogrammers. Good jobs are goddamn rare and hard to find no matter who you are. Talent should have the kind of leverage that HN believes it does, but right now, 90+ percent of talented people are poors who still need to adapt to bosses and market trends and landlords.

wtvanhest 14y ago
Yeah, Chicago is good too. The winters there are worse than Boston, and as someone living in Boston, I'm not sure I can deal with much worse. Also, DC is pretty good too. Arguably, NY and SF are far better than Boston, and you could probably safely lump Boston in with Chicago and DC as far as desirability. I agree with you that talent doesn't have as much leverage as they think they do. Good jobs are nearly impossible to find. That is why living in a great city is so important. Talent will never have the type of leverage HN believes it does except for in rare individuals who have built social credit along with their skills.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Good jobs are nearly impossible to find. That is why living in a great city is so important. Talent will never have the type of leverage HN believes it does except for in rare individuals who have built social credit along with their skills. Now that I'm almost 30 and aware of my mortality (my mother passed away recently, which had more to do with my "mid-life crisis" than chronological age, since I'm still quite young by the standard outside of Wall Street and VC-istan) I'm starting to wonder about the best way to change this. How do we take this garbage-pile of an industry and fix it? How do we clear away the crap and build something we can be proud of? Social trends are such that we're on track for a violent worldwide revolution (widespread, permanent un(der)+employment will be the norm by 2030) unless we fix our society in a major way (basic income, necessitated by said underemployment) but we also have the tools available to be smart and not burn/kill our way to a better world. We don't need to overthrow the corporate bastards with force (at least, I hope we don't; the problem with real-world holy wars is that the unholy have guns and better aim) because with technology we can outperform them. We should take this opportunity to rewrite all the assumptions, if we can.
  - wtvanhest 14y ago
    I wouldn't count on the violent worldwide revolution. History has not been kind to the massive number of people who consistently predict it while saying "this time its different!" As far as your first question... who knows? One thing I know for certain, it doesn't matter what you do, or how you do it, there will be trade-offs, always. As a much older than you... 30 year old, I've come to sort of just enjoy what I can and brush off the unpleasant stuff while I keep up with a rigorous search for knowledge and improved skills. I'm certain that opportunities will present themselves, and I'm positioning to always be ready to take advantage of them. Fulfillment for me partially comes from the knowledge and skills gained. I know that I will have a high level of achievement over my career and because I am confident it will all work out, I am relaxed while I push myself. In 2 years, maybe I'll have a totally different outlook? I guess that is the fun of the whole thing.
rdouble 14y ago
What about Chicago? Or it's an invitation to work at some startup with shitty cargo-cult culture that'll fire you at 4 months with no severance if you don't go to the strip club with the other brogrammers. Chicago is ok but be aware that it's bro central if that's something you are trying to avoid.
- hugs 14y ago
  There are plenty of non-bros in Chicago. I live in Chicago, and have no problem successfully avoiding them.
  - rdouble 14y ago
    Yes, but it's different than in say, SF Bay or Portland where you don't have to say you "successfully avoided" them. You have to go out of your way to find the bros. That said, bros in Chicago are probably in about the same concentration as Boston or Manhattan.

hugs 14y ago

I choose to live in Chicago, but have lived in NY and the Bay Area. SF and NYC are awesome and I love to travel! :-) But I choose Chicago for a lower cost of living, which means my personal financial runway is longer, which means I can take more risks career/product-wise. And, I love Chicago. But I don't buy the argument that residence is destiny. I choose to live by Steve Martin's famous line: "Be so good they can't ignore you." When you're really good, it doesn't matter where you live. I'm not saying I'm that good, but I am saying I strive to focus on the work, not on where I do it. If a potential investor won't invest because I'm not in NY, SF, or whereever, fuck 'em.

tmo9d 14y ago
If you are really good at what you do, and if you understand how real startups work, it becomes clear that location is the most irrelevant factor to success. I second Jason's views. If someone isn't going to work with you because you refuse to move to South End, Mountain View, or Brooklyn, then they can go fuck themselves. I travel to these places quite a bit though, and I love having a career that brings me to both coasts often. The Midwest is the perfect place for a startup. Now that being said, Chicago has an entertaining startup scene. Entertaining in that I feel like they are trying too hard to be like San Franscisco.

mjn 14y ago

From what I can tell, VCs don't care much for SF as a place to live. They do like the Valley, though. They live in places like Atherton and Palo Alto. It's the young employees who live in the Mission. It's true that the extended area has significant appeal, but I'm not sure it's due to its niceness as a place to live, so much as just that it's where the action is, for historical reasons dating back to the '50s.

FelixP 14y ago
I think most people prefer SF, but VCs tend to be older and thus prefer locations with more space to raise families (e.g. Palo Alto, Marin, etc.)