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The next Silicon Valley is probably going to be Silicon Valley
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoOne of those cases where the title really does say it all.
- asanwal 13y agoHa. Very true. Although, if you look out over the medium-term, NY is making a good case for being a challenger. Massachusetts has really seemingly squandered the advantages it has.
- bayesianhorse 13y agoBut submitting a tweet on HN is way less cool than writing a blog article...
- meisterbrendan 13y agoWhat this analysis didn't include was SV vs. other global hubs; as NYC is the only legit challenger domestically in the medium term, I heard the same about Tel Aviv internationally. It would also be interesting to see how SV's funding proportion holds up over time internationally. edit for sentence clarity.
- jseliger 13y agoAnd a quick Googling of the term “the next Silicon Valley” shows Seattle, Los Angeles, Bangalore, Tel Aviv and even the Brooklyn tech triangle (yes – really) have all thrown their hat into the ring thinking they could be contenders. I am highly skeptical that LA or New York could be the next Silicon Valley because their costs of living are so high already. If you're going to pay that much for an apartment and want to do a startup, you might as well move to SV already. Seattle's prices have been rising for years too, and, although it's much less expensive than NYC or coastal CA, building in Seattle is still difficult and expensive. Austin, Texas is perhaps the most interesting possibility on a cost-of-living basis. (For more on why this matters, see Yglesias, The Rent is Too Damn High: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO).
- selectodude 13y agoWhat about Chicago?
- asanwal 13y agoWe looked at this as well. Here's a research brief appropriately titled "Chicago is not going to be the next Silicon Valley". If you like graphs and data, the brief illustrates why -- http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/chicago-venture-capital http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/chicago-venture-capita...
- selectodude 13y agoDo you think the issue for most regions outside of Northern California is merely a lack of VC money? New York makes sense, as there is just tankloads of money that you won't find anywhere else on earth.
- asanwal 13y agoNY has a few things going for it most notably it is seen by many as a "capital of the world". - People want to live here. Not everyone of course, but if you're young, like a diversity of entertainment options and people, good food, culture, etc (yes - there are downsides). Very few people in the world say "I'd love to live in Boston, Seattle, Portland, etc for a bit to see what it's like". NY has that effect on people. - Major companies and industries which are being disrupted or enhanced by technology are HQ'd there. Advertising, financial services to name two. If you roll in CT and NJ, you have insurance, pharma, etc. - Lots of people so if you're doing something on the consumer side, many guinea pigs. - Lots of money and influential folks here. The whole 1% thing. - More and more VCs are setting up shop here as well. I think they see a good ecosystem here, and I think many of them don't mind having an excuse to visit NY for business.
- selectodude 13y agoI appreciate the insight. Thanks.
- josephagoss 13y agoActually once the Government severely limits crypto-currencies for the protection of the American people we might find the next tech haven to be outside the USA. How can the next Silicon Valley be in the USA when one of the major new paradigms in the tech world will soon be entirely banned?
- cgore 13y agoThe USA is basically accepting Bitcoins and the like as legitimate currency, with the recent FINCEN guidance and with the various positive results in the courts. I would be more worried about the EU banning BTC than the USA, because of all the issues the Eurozone is having financially, as part of a general effort to prop up the Euro currency and the many failed Eurozone banks.
- nasalgoat 13y agoI'd say that Toronto has a good chance of stepping up but the cost of living here is also too high.
- Aloisius 13y agoI think people really underestimate how much Silicon Valley owes to the world-class universities we have here. Without them, we wouldn't dominate tech and biotech. Stanford pumps out CS/MBA/BioTech, Berkeley pumps out CS/MBA/BioTech, UCSF pumps out BioTech. Their influence can not be understated nor easily replicated to other cities even if they have a ton of VC money.
- jbp 13y agoIs Harvard/MIT/BU for Boston any less? I think in addition to great universities, there is definitely something else to SV.
- ghc 13y agoNo, and that illustrates his point in a way. Boston has the second largest amount of VC funding, tons of startups, and more institutions of higher learning than pretty much any other metro area in the US [Citation Needed...last I saw it was 84]. But Boston's huge number of universities and hospitals is also one thing that makes it different from Silicon Valley. A lot more smart people can get into PhD programs, so there's a talent drain away from startups.
- arbuge 13y agoVC money is a big part of the ecosystem but not everything. For example I'm from Texas and there's a lot of angel activity going on here which isn't captured by VC funding metrics. There is also an emphasis on startups which can be cashflow positive early and not require years and years of VC funding first.