5 ms·
Good lord why? There are so many other tech hubs where housing is reasonable. How are you supposed to do your most inspired work if you can't get a decent night
by jsonne 13y ago
Good lord why? There are so many other tech hubs where housing is reasonable. How are you supposed to do your most inspired work if you can't get a decent night's sleep.
- brudgers 13y agoThere are theatre people in Milwaukee and Houston and DC. But if you want to be on Broadway, you gotta' bite the big apple. Des Moines is for sleeping.
- jsonne 13y agoI've seen some cool companies and some badass people come out of Des Moines. Don't knock it.
- brudgers 13y agoMy wife's family is from Iowa, but nobody would mistake Des Moines for the city that never sleeps. Even its most fervent partisans. That's the way analogies work.
- joonix 13y agoSilicon Valley is one big, dark, empty sleepy suburb at night. I don't think the liveliness of street culture has anything to do with a city's status as a tech hub. Personally I would want to be in Des Moines if I was selling agriculture software, or something like that. Parent's startup deals with journalism, perhaps better off in NYC. SV is not the end-all, be-all for everyone, especially since Parent is bootstrapping and the VC ecosystem means nothing to him.
- austenallred 13y agoJournalism - kind of, depending on your definition of journalism. And it's not a media play, it's a hard technology play, so SV is a better fit.
- jsonne 13y agoDes Moines is big for financials. Specifically insurance.
- brudgers 13y agoIf you're young and a dancer, New York offers a high number of opportunities because there is a critical mass. Silicon Valley is analogous in regard to software startups. Des Moines may be great for soybean biotech, but that ain't the fellow's business - nor is it a young person's game. Obviously, neither is insurance. Sleeping in a Civic isn't my cup of tea - I'd need at least a Grand Caravan - but that doesn't make it wrong for everyone. And a young person can wind up living in their car despite playing to expectations and not pursuing their dreams. That and short is just the way life is.
- mikeash 13y agoThese days, I'd argue that the computing equivalent of the theater person's NYC is simply "the internet". Sure, maybe silicon valley is slightly better, but it doesn't look like a particularly compelling advantage, certainly not anything close to the divide between doing theater in NYC and doing it in Milwaukee. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog, and few people care where your doghouse is.
- jakejake 13y agoI'd like to think that's try since I'm not in Silicon Valley. But sometimes it does feel like most of the deals that are made are due to personal connections - people who are running into each other at events, parties, coffee shops, etc.
- lsc 13y agoThere's a huge premium, when consulting, to being there in person. One of the easier ways to do a startup without investors (or homelessness) in this area is to work 3-6 months out of the year as a contractor. My impression is that getting those jobs is way easier here than anywhere else. /my impression/ is that it's similar when getting VC money, but I don't have direct experience with that like I have with consulting. People you meet in person, in my experience, are more likely to do business deals with you, and you are going to run into more people of the calibre you want to have partnerships with in this area than anywhere else.
- jlongster 13y agoThe main problem I have with this is that it would put so much pressure on your startup. You need to be built to resist failure, and if you've literally invested everything, you're in for a hard time. Not to say that you shouldn't invest almost everything, and this is a cool hack, but it's not sustainable, at least emotionally.
- austenallred 13y agoI don't feel like there's that much pressure on the startup, I'm just concentrating full-time on it for a while. If I run out of savings I'll pick up some freelance stuff and keep working on it, just not full-time. I guess it all depends on your unique circumstances.
- waitwhat 13y agoI'm sorry, but describing homelessness as "a cool hack" is pretty twisted.
- iamtherockstar 13y ago> I'm sorry, but Are you? Are you really sorry?
- jakejake 13y agoI don't think in that context it represents an apology or even empathy. It means "allow me to politely tell you that you are full of shit!" Kinda like saying "have a nice day" to somebody who was just rude to you.
- ZirconCode 13y agoThere's a saying. Anything which was said before a but doesn't really count. I think this guy has a point.
- jlongster 13y agoGo get to know real homeless people, we are not talking about homelessness here. Though I think the OP is taking it a bit far, I think it would be fine to do it for a week or something if you opened up a huge opportunity for you.