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San Francisco's real startup sauce is people with fucking imagination. Try this experiment anywhere in the world "Hey, I've written this great thing that can

San Francisco's real startup sauce is people with fucking imagination. Try this experiment anywhere in the world "Hey, I've written this great thing that can change millions of people's lives. I'd like to start a company around it!" Typically you can expect: "With what?" "What makes you think you can run a company?" "You're, what, 27?" "There are teams of dozens of people who can do the same thing, why would you succeed where they can't?" "Even if you do the work that literally thousands of teams all over the country can do and have actual resources for, what will you do next, you don't have a company" "Even if you make sales, you are losing way more money than you could by just working as a coder. You're delusional". "Let's say you get some customers and make more than you would otherwise. You still don't have a business. You haven't run a business! Would you enlist in the olympics without ever having even TRIED the sport?" etcetcetc versus San Francisco typical reaction: "Can I see it?"

potatolicious 14y ago
I think that's dramatically over-romanticizing the startup scene. > ""Hey, I've written this great thing that can change millions of people's lives. I'd like to start a company around it!" I've been pitched a lot of startups before, in San Francisco and elsewhere. I have never heard this line even once. The vast majority of founders (in SF or elsewhere) want only one thing: their big exit. They couldn't give two shits about changing the world, disrupting some huge evil industry, or anything like that. They want to get theirs, and any type of righteousness in their message is just posturing. To portray SF like it's some sort of haven for young people who want to change the world is grossly inaccurate. It's not like that in SF, it's not like that anywhere. Sure, once in a while you get something that genuinely seems to be a work of passion. Github is a nice example. For ever Github you have to wade through two dozen yet-another-photo-sharing-app, yet-another-social-location-mobile, etc etc, who are all in it for the me-too and the get-rich-quick. San Francisco is a very small number of people trying to change the world while a whole lot of other people ride along, posture a bit, and hope they get mistakenly swept along for the ride.
trustfundbaby 14y ago
That's what I think is holding Austin back. Startups here tend to be pragmatic and a bit dreary, Indeed just had a big exit, but how exciting are they? The big idea companies (gowalla) or the ones doing something truly new (five runs) have either not done very well or have been bought out (Other inbox, Hey Ride). I think its because most of the hackers, VC money and technology leadership here come from Java and semi-conductor backgrounds where the kind of truly creative thinking and crazy experiments that lead to world changing companies aren't exactly encouraged. But in addition to that, the gravitational pull by Silicon valley of talent, ideas and money is going to be very difficult to overcome, without some really deliberate effort and resources.

potatolicious 14y ago

I think that's dramatically over-romanticizing the startup scene. > ""Hey, I've written this great thing that can change millions of people's lives. I'd like to start a company around it!" I've been pitched a lot of startups before, in San Francisco and elsewhere. I have never heard this line even once. The vast majority of founders (in SF or elsewhere) want only one thing: their big exit. They couldn't give two shits about changing the world, disrupting some huge evil industry, or anything like that. They want to get theirs, and any type of righteousness in their message is just posturing. To portray SF like it's some sort of haven for young people who want to change the world is grossly inaccurate. It's not like that in SF, it's not like that anywhere. Sure, once in a while you get something that genuinely seems to be a work of passion. Github is a nice example. For ever Github you have to wade through two dozen yet-another-photo-sharing-app, yet-another-social-location-mobile, etc etc, who are all in it for the me-too and the get-rich-quick. San Francisco is a very small number of people trying to change the world while a whole lot of other people ride along, posture a bit, and hope they get mistakenly swept along for the ride.

trustfundbaby 14y ago

That's what I think is holding Austin back. Startups here tend to be pragmatic and a bit dreary, Indeed just had a big exit, but how exciting are they? The big idea companies (gowalla) or the ones doing something truly new (five runs) have either not done very well or have been bought out (Other inbox, Hey Ride). I think its because most of the hackers, VC money and technology leadership here come from Java and semi-conductor backgrounds where the kind of truly creative thinking and crazy experiments that lead to world changing companies aren't exactly encouraged. But in addition to that, the gravitational pull by Silicon valley of talent, ideas and money is going to be very difficult to overcome, without some really deliberate effort and resources.