Is NYC the next tech mecca? | Hacker News Reader

Is NYC the next tech mecca?

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28 pointsidiginous39 comments

Great. One of the few places in the country that's even less affordable than the Bay Area.

Startups looking for a home: Take a look at D.C. IMO the talent base is every bit as rich as NYC's, and people can actually afford to live here.

Or Boston. We've got a thriving startup community and we've got tons of techie schools in the area!

There are even some groups who are going around to find all the local resources in the boston area: http://greenhornconnect.com/ and http://dartboston.com/

Manhattan is expensive. NYC as a whole isn't as bad.

You can save some money in the outer boroughs but the entire metro region is more expensive than _any_ other American metro region for most lifestyles; and much more expensive than _most_.

No, not while NYC is still run by the bankers.

What does it mean for NYC to be run by bankers?

Zed Shaw explained this very well in a post about why there's no real startup culture in NYC (yet): http://zedshaw.com/blog/2010-01-19.html

It's true though. The financial industry controls an incredible amount of wealth in New York. I think most people don't really appreciate the scale of it.

Yeah, so don't go expecting a handout from BofA. But Wells Fargo isn't raining money on SF startups either.

I don't think "Sorry, limit one industry per city" is a valid rule.

Zed exaggerates wildly. If he was speaking with the manager of a $30 billion hedge fund, he was talking to one of three people: George Soros, John Paulson (yes, the guy on the short side of ABACUS), or Brevan Howard.

http://www.pionline.com/article/20100308/CHART2/100309910

J.P. Morgan asset management (i.e., nearly all the hedge funds J.P. Morgan owns) is only $53 billion.

Yeah, Zed makes a few good points but most of it is totally off base. Venture capital is not a zero-sum game between tech startups and bankers. A person looking to invest in a startup probably already has investments with several funds and just wants to take a bet on something much more risky but with a lot more potential upside.

He does make a good point about talent though: Most of the good quants and algo guys are already employed, have years of vesting options, and can probably retire in 10 years if they stay at whatever fund they're working at. The base salaries are 6 figures, and with bonuses and employee stock plans they're probably pulling in closer to a quarter of a million annually, so your chances of recruiting them to a startup to live on top ramen for a few years are slim to none. Sorry, that's just the reality here. I'm sure you can find some fresh-faced college grads a lot easier though.

Zed is right about the fundamentals. Wall Street, as a provider of financial products, is cheating. Their returns are artificially higher because of excessive risk-taking, weak regulations and the guarantee of a bailout if anything goes wrong.

If all hidden costs were taken into account, Wall Street would be less competitive which would leave more space for healthier financial products.

controls wealth? isn't wealth created?

You seriously think the rest of the country is different?

Yes, based on these articles it is and always will be the next tech Mecca. ;)

Well, it certainly has the money. And the ambition.

But way back in 2006-2007, at the start of the web 2.0 gold rush, I remember being bombarded with non-serious NYC startup offers that were basically "Do all the work for my brilliant <buzzword soup> product. I'll give you 10% equity. Maybe. Sign an NDA."

Since then, though, several really impressive startups have emerged. It looks like their doing a good job sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Question for anyone based in NYC: How difficult is it to find qualified programmers and other tech people? I've heard it's much tougher than it is in the Valley.

People expect 6 figures. It's not that hard if you can pay.

As a qualified programmer, I found it much harder to find a legit work in NYC compared to when I lived in Seattle. I know very talented programers in both places, though.

I don't understand this. Your resume must not have enough experience or something, because I get calls from recruiters all the time.

Minneapolis, MN. Strong community, plenty of funding, several datacenters and coworking spots. Hard to beat, IMHO (disclaimer: I am currently writing this while in an apartment in MPLS)

"This will be the year of NYC as the new tech mecca"

"This will be the year of Linux in the Desktop"

"This will be the year of..."

:-)

My bet is on Austin TX.

All they need is a couple of rock stars, a couple of news sites, and a couple of big hits.

Judging by the job listings I typically see, the Austin software scene tilts heavily toward the enterprise. I'd love to see that change, though.

I live here and think it is a fantastic place, a mecca for the romantical types.

No. We have to work on the housing problem quite a bit before that can happen, and since this involves inflicting pain on some very wealthy, entrenched, and powerful people, it's unlikely to happen any time soon.

(Silicon Valley has disgustingly high housing prices, but that happened after it had established momentum in technology.)

Silicon Valley has high housing prices BECAUSE of the established momentum in technology. New York is going to have high housing prices as long as it is a highly remunerative place to work. It's possible to address the housing problem directly in the case of low income residents, but addressing it for the middle class has never worked out. Better transit lets people work in the city and commute from further away, which is one way of mitigating the housing expense problem.

New York's housing prices are absurd even in relation to the average income here.

If people make 30% more in New York than they do elsewhere, it makes sense that housing would cost 30% more. 300% more is unconscionable.

This is caused in large part because the disposable income excluding housing increases far more than 30% and you don't need a car. Add in a culture of people willing to have roommates and a limited housing market due to rent control and you are going to see huge price increases.

The biggest issue, as Edward Glaeser points out: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/taller-building... involves the many restrictions on new buildings. Until very recently, most buildings in the 1990s -- when real estate became not just expensive, but absurdly expensive -- were smaller than their predecessors: "Market forces pushed for taller structures, but structures got shorter, at least until the Bloomberg years, because of a regulatory environment that made construction increasingly more difficult."

All sorts of really dumb laws make housing more expensive. Rent control and projects take huge swaths of housing out of the market, reducing supply and raising costs. Onerous regulations and NIMBYism make building new buildings difficult (e.g., hippies in the village often block construction of new apartments). Because of rent control most new buildings will be either luxury buildings (not subject to rent control) or condos.

There is a simple solution to housing prices: move subsidized housing out to Jamaica (increasing supply), end rent control and let developers build. Unfortunately, the local culture makes this exceedingly unlikely.

A lot of the new housing going up (and the reason for the NIMBYism) typically has these attributes (a close friend was in a similar building in BK):

* Extremely shoddy construction (2 years after being built, severe water damage from leaking windows)

* Blank concrete walls with giant leaky windows

* Extremely poor soundproofing

* Overpriced for their size and quality

* Thus, attracting more affluent, less intelligent, and typically more dickish yuppy types

The "simple solution" you propose would be terrible. It would ghettoize Jamaica even more than it already is - even if not done for racist reasons (I'm convinced that's not your reasoning), it would come across as this and get an immense amount of backlash from the council, the population, and community boards throughout the city.

Thus, attracting more affluent, less intelligent, and typically more dickish yuppy types

Therein lies the real reason. "If we allow new construction, people who are different from us will move in!"

By the way, companies building rental buildings rarely construct them poorly. It's just bad business - once the building starts to leak, renters will move out, and it's the responsibility of the management company to fix it.

As for shipping projects out to jamaica, I didn't mean to single out Jamaica. You could spread it around all the cheapest areas in NYC. But yes, you are correct that it is unfeasible, since people will fight it for cultural reasons.

The problem is not lack of new buildings. There are dozens, if not hundreds of mostly empty new buildings in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, LIC and downtown Brooklyn.

The expense of housing in NYC is not tied to any real "fundamental." The owners are charging what they think the market will bear. The smaller tenement style and brownstone buildings in the hot rental areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn were usually purchased and fully paid for back in the 1980s... My old landlord owned a block of avenue B that he bought for about $80K per building back in the 80s. Paid off decades ago. He's charging $2400/m per unit. Shit apartments, roaches, old appliances, noisy... The whole alphabet city experience from the 80s still available to BFFs from Maryland psyched to be at NYU!

NYC only has disgustingly high housing prices if you want to live in Manhattan.

Arguably, moving to one of the boroughs is much cheaper.

(Two bedroom apartments start at around $1200 in my neighborhood in Brooklyn - 1200 square foot studio lofts run for about $1850)

Actual question, not a jab: How long would it take to commute to midtown Manhattan from there?

Parts of NJ have similar prices. The commute would be 30 minutes to midtown.

If you live in a slightly different place, you get a 15 minute commute to lower manhattan.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=250...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=1+J...

I'm about 25 minutes from Midtown. 8 stops on the L, transfer to the 4/5 if going to Grand Central. Luckily, I work just north of Union Square - 20 minutes door to door, give or take 5.

Where in brooklyn are you? Where I'm at it's $2k for a 1 bedroom.

... and just for the record, as someone pointed out up top, either of your figures are still expensive relative to most metro areas.

Bushwick. Granted, not the nicest area, but there are a lot of creative types around, and it's quickly becoming convenient (in terms of shopping and eatery). It's pretty much what Williamsburg was like 10 years ago or so (with a little longer of a commute). If you like loft-style living, there are tons. Most of the two bedrooms in the area are railroad style, so unless you're living with a significant other or alone, they aren't that comfortable.

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