Comment by gamechangr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gamechangr | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Sure...

"lack of real content"....It's hard to say things without it sounding negative. I think many countries have talented engineers, but I will try.

When the whole world asks if they can compete with SV, they ask it for a reason. SV is in fact - exceptional. There is no other SV. That is why the world asks "Can we compete?".

Can you imagine the reverse? There are no groups of people attending a talk in SV asking "can we compete with Paris?".

That doesn't mean that Paris, or any other city, doesn't have smart people at work on great things. I am sure they do.

But to imply there are no advantages in SV is a bit hard to believe. After all, the people in the video gathered to hear the SV expert :)

When I asked for your real opinion on this I thought it was obvious that I asked what it was that made SV special... Not for you to again state that you think it's special.

no - you were not clear at all. No worries :)

Maybe this will help.

This is Paul Graham (Y combinator) writing "How to be Silicon Valley" http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html

not the parent, but I can think of the major research labs originally in SV, now major tech companies, and the big universities such as Stanford with great technical talent. Those are big factors in what makes SV technically strong.

There's also many country-related advantages not specific to SV but to the U.S. in general: How easy it is to create your company and work from your garage compared to other countries. This makes SV business friendly

The international crowd in SV: People from every continent share and mix their ideas, this usually leads to great results since the people who immigrate to SV for the purpose of entrepreneurship usually all share that great ambition and can bring the best of their home countries cultures and know-how.

There is a critical mass of technical talent, companies, and financing. Those attract more of each to locate there. I say this as someone who wishes that other US cities had a tech scene a quarter as strong as SV.

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