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"Another way to put it is that there are lots of billionaires, just no tech-billionaires." False. From your hedge fund list, at least James Simons and David Sh

by nissimk 13y ago

"Another way to put it is that there are lots of billionaires, just no tech-billionaires." False. From your hedge fund list, at least James Simons and David Shaw are tech billionaires and probably some more that I don't recognize. Also, one of the most successful NYC tech billionaires your forgetting: Michael Bloomberg. Although all of these guys are finance/tech it is still tech. Comparison of the size of venture capital funds is probably accurate, but that is changing as well.

rayiner 13y ago
Relevant biographical info: "David Elliot Shaw (born March 29, 1951) is a Jewish-American computer scientist and computational biochemist who founded D. E. Shaw & Co... A former faculty member in the computer science department at Columbia University, Shaw made his fortune exploiting inefficiencies in financial markets with the help of state-of-the-art high speed computer networks." D. E. Shaw & Co. also hires a ton of STEM folks. Also: "D. E. Shaw Research (DESRES) is a computational biochemistry research laboratory based in New York City. Under the scientific direction of David E. Shaw, the group's chief scientist, D. E. Shaw Research develops technologies for molecular dynamics simulations (including Anton,[1] [2] a massively parallel special-purpose supercomputer, and Desmond,[3] a software package for use on conventional computers and computer clusters) and applies such simulations to basic scientific research in structural biology and biochemistry, and to the process of computer-aided drug design."
- busterarm 13y ago
  I used to work for DESCO. Some seriously smart folks there and especially in the DESRES group. That's the thing though. The top engineering talent goes to financial companies in New York because that's what's fashionable there. There's an actual cultural difference. There's one other big cultural difference that has an affect on who wants to do tech startups. In SV people care about "What can you do?/What have you done?" where in NY it's more "Where did you go to school?/What's your pedigree?" and in my experience, Ivy Leaguers are generally funneled into Finance. There is a lot of money spent on recruiting them, so it's easier to just take the hedge fund job out of school than go work for or found a startup. When Jeff Bezos, who used to work for DESCO, founded Amazon, he didn't do it in New York.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > The top engineering talent goes to financial companies in New York because that's what's fashionable there. There's an actual cultural difference. Right, and in Silicon Valley the top engineering talent tends to go to advertising companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc). What does that matter? Advertising and finance are both industries flush with relatively easy cash right now, of course people are going to seek out jobs in those areas. > There's one other big cultural difference that has an affect on who wants to do tech startups. In SV people care about "What can you do?/What have you done?" where in NY it's more "Where did you go to school?/What's your pedigree?" That's true and is probably a bigger substantive differnce. Though, ever since Google made it a thing to recruit heavily from Stanford, tech has been a lot more pedigree-sensitive. I don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing, but it's certainly different. Indeed, if aversion to pedigree-sensitivity is a concern, I'd argue that a better place to focus your startup-founding energies would be D.C. There's good bootstrapping opportunities vis-a-vis government contracts and contracting to established defense/telecom players in the city, and the "old guard engineer" mentality in this industries places very little emphasis on pedigree (even though D.C. is otherwise an extremely prestige-conscious city).
    - busterarm 13y ago
      > Right, and in Silicon Valley the top engineering talent tends to go to advertising companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc). What does that matter? Advertising and finance are both industries flush with relatively easy cash right now, of course people are going to seek out jobs in those areas. Right, I'm not saying it matters at all other than if you're a competing business, you're going to have a hard time recruiting against these firms. It's not always just a money thing either. I don't think SV is any better than NY though. I work for an SV-based company remotely. Both cultures are kinda terrible and both cities are only chasing after 'easy money' industries without trying to bring in other business. If the money suddenly dried up in advertising, the Valley would be in a bad way just as much as a slump in Finance would crush New York. Politically, New York has to do a lot more to attract other business. Maybe an incentive to financial companies to fund/start businesses in STEM fields. Otherwise it's never going to happen.
  - 13y ago
- pvdm 13y ago
  Jeff Bezos worked for D.E. Shaw before starting Amazon.
der3k 13y ago
You're obviously correct, but as Michael Arrington not long ago said, "Oh come on, Bloomberg doesn't count." And I feel like 90% of HN would agree w/ that sentiment.
- rayiner 13y ago
  That's rich, given that Bloomberg has a degree in electrical engineering while Arrington has ones in economics and law. Bloomberg made his fortunate literally selling computers.
  - der3k 13y ago
    Cool story? I don't see how that negates my point that 90% of HN don't consider Bloomberg to be a tech company.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      90% of HN-ers are wrong. Bloomberg was all about using computer technology to efficiently deliver business information to finance people. If it's not a tech company just because the target audience is finance people, then Facebook, Instagram, etc, are not tech companies but rather entertainment companies focused on teens and 20-somethings.
      - der3k 13y ago
        I actually agree with you. Bloomberg is a tech company, and a very very successful one at that :). I was just pointing out the perception.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      This is as good an illustration as any of how myopic HN is. Bloomberg isn't just a tech company; they're more technical than most (word chosen carefully!) of the companies YC funds.
      - nissimk 13y ago

by nissimk 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

Relevant biographical info: "David Elliot Shaw (born March 29, 1951) is a Jewish-American computer scientist and computational biochemist who founded D. E. Shaw & Co... A former faculty member in the computer science department at Columbia University, Shaw made his fortune exploiting inefficiencies in financial markets with the help of state-of-the-art high speed computer networks." D. E. Shaw & Co. also hires a ton of STEM folks. Also: "D. E. Shaw Research (DESRES) is a computational biochemistry research laboratory based in New York City. Under the scientific direction of David E. Shaw, the group's chief scientist, D. E. Shaw Research develops technologies for molecular dynamics simulations (including Anton,[1] [2] a massively parallel special-purpose supercomputer, and Desmond,[3] a software package for use on conventional computers and computer clusters) and applies such simulations to basic scientific research in structural biology and biochemistry, and to the process of computer-aided drug design."

busterarm 13y ago
I used to work for DESCO. Some seriously smart folks there and especially in the DESRES group. That's the thing though. The top engineering talent goes to financial companies in New York because that's what's fashionable there. There's an actual cultural difference. There's one other big cultural difference that has an affect on who wants to do tech startups. In SV people care about "What can you do?/What have you done?" where in NY it's more "Where did you go to school?/What's your pedigree?" and in my experience, Ivy Leaguers are generally funneled into Finance. There is a lot of money spent on recruiting them, so it's easier to just take the hedge fund job out of school than go work for or found a startup. When Jeff Bezos, who used to work for DESCO, founded Amazon, he didn't do it in New York.
- rayiner 13y ago
  > The top engineering talent goes to financial companies in New York because that's what's fashionable there. There's an actual cultural difference. Right, and in Silicon Valley the top engineering talent tends to go to advertising companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc). What does that matter? Advertising and finance are both industries flush with relatively easy cash right now, of course people are going to seek out jobs in those areas. > There's one other big cultural difference that has an affect on who wants to do tech startups. In SV people care about "What can you do?/What have you done?" where in NY it's more "Where did you go to school?/What's your pedigree?" That's true and is probably a bigger substantive differnce. Though, ever since Google made it a thing to recruit heavily from Stanford, tech has been a lot more pedigree-sensitive. I don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing, but it's certainly different. Indeed, if aversion to pedigree-sensitivity is a concern, I'd argue that a better place to focus your startup-founding energies would be D.C. There's good bootstrapping opportunities vis-a-vis government contracts and contracting to established defense/telecom players in the city, and the "old guard engineer" mentality in this industries places very little emphasis on pedigree (even though D.C. is otherwise an extremely prestige-conscious city).
  - busterarm 13y ago
    > Right, and in Silicon Valley the top engineering talent tends to go to advertising companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc). What does that matter? Advertising and finance are both industries flush with relatively easy cash right now, of course people are going to seek out jobs in those areas. Right, I'm not saying it matters at all other than if you're a competing business, you're going to have a hard time recruiting against these firms. It's not always just a money thing either. I don't think SV is any better than NY though. I work for an SV-based company remotely. Both cultures are kinda terrible and both cities are only chasing after 'easy money' industries without trying to bring in other business. If the money suddenly dried up in advertising, the Valley would be in a bad way just as much as a slump in Finance would crush New York. Politically, New York has to do a lot more to attract other business. Maybe an incentive to financial companies to fund/start businesses in STEM fields. Otherwise it's never going to happen.
- 13y ago
pvdm 13y ago
Jeff Bezos worked for D.E. Shaw before starting Amazon.

der3k 13y ago

You're obviously correct, but as Michael Arrington not long ago said, "Oh come on, Bloomberg doesn't count." And I feel like 90% of HN would agree w/ that sentiment.

rayiner 13y ago
That's rich, given that Bloomberg has a degree in electrical engineering while Arrington has ones in economics and law. Bloomberg made his fortunate literally selling computers.
- der3k 13y ago
  Cool story? I don't see how that negates my point that 90% of HN don't consider Bloomberg to be a tech company.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    90% of HN-ers are wrong. Bloomberg was all about using computer technology to efficiently deliver business information to finance people. If it's not a tech company just because the target audience is finance people, then Facebook, Instagram, etc, are not tech companies but rather entertainment companies focused on teens and 20-somethings.
    - der3k 13y ago
      I actually agree with you. Bloomberg is a tech company, and a very very successful one at that :). I was just pointing out the perception.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    This is as good an illustration as any of how myopic HN is. Bloomberg isn't just a tech company; they're more technical than most (word chosen carefully!) of the companies YC funds.
    - nissimk 13y ago