Where’s the Next Silicon Valley? VC Is Betting on the Midwest
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
I left the midwest for the west coast because of the culture, full stop. I was tired of my state representatives writing my sexual preference off as a disorder. I was angry when the state decided a pharmacist could refuse to sell me birth control and I hated the legislative decree that tried to exert control over what gender got to use the bathroom or not. In short, I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election. Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose, but at least I dont have to worry about the ten commandments showing up at the DMV in stone or some toothless anti-shariah legislation burning through my tax dollars.
Drive 15 miles outside Columbus and it doesnt matter how many VC firm employees you have in the city, the bible thumpers win this state by a landslide of gerrymandering and arent ashamed to force their backwoods culture on you from the hinterlands. The midwests relationship with silicon valley terminates at the facebook, google, and twitter HTTP connection for a damn good reason.
The Midwest might be generally more conservative, but tech companies are going to started in cities like Columbus, not the rural area.
I see no reason the cities in the midwest couldn't host a tech boom, and over time start to turn the cultural tide as a result.
More globally, this divide makes me sad. I have trouble thinking these people who hold views I find quite wrong are bad people, but it seems somewhere our national conversation has broken down completely. Sometimes maybe for good reasons, but still it's quite depressing.
Edit: typo
Even when we are talking about people who support stomping on the rights of others because of something as private as sexual orientation?
Are all of these people "bad"? Of course not. There is simply a cultural disconnect, and some ideas die hard.
(1) http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-hom...
In that one respect, yes.
> There is simply a cultural disconnect
Yes, much like there was once a “cultural disconnect” over whether human beings could legitimately be treated as property rather than persons.
You’re not the first person I’ve seen equate the plight and horror of slaves and slavery to the contemporary condition of the LGTB community in a modern, first world, secular society, but I can’t help but wonder at exactly how it is that you arrived at that conviction.
(2) If you mean something like “paints an equivalence between”, I didn't. I provided an illustration of the concept that the existence of a cultural difference does not imply equal validity of both sides of the difference.
(3) The attitudes rejecting homosexuality are almost entirely not found in secular society, though they may be found in national whose government is, nominally at least, secular.
2. you did, and your illustration provided no such thing; it’s a strawman with no bearing in reality, and your very self-same argument can be used to undermine your own position...
3. what?
There was a parallel drawn between the cultural divide on both issues, and the implication was that, like slavery, oppression of homosexuals is wrong.
3. The hatred of homosexuals (at least hatred of gay marriage) tends to draw from religion. A more secular society has no reason to care.
Yes, that does make them a bad person, and that makes it impossible for them to be more than just an acquaintance to me. And it also makes their religion--or at least their personal interpretation of it-- a bad religion. My imaginary friends don't get jealous of my real friends, and if yours ever do, you might want to consider pretending to break with them instead of turning on your real friends. It's up to you to determine if your imaginary friends have ever actually prevented you from making a real friend.
Ethical development has come a long way over the last 5000 years, but even the semitic monotheist religions have all had "That which is hateful to you, do not do to others," for the last 2000. And yet the faithful still put their own hateful words in the mouths of their gods or their prophets for the credulous to hear and repeat. They do it for money and for status, and care little for the consequences.
It is wrong. We can explain its wrongness with ethical treatise, and demonstrate the wrongness with game theory and Monte Carlo methods. Private behaviors of any sort are fundamentally unsuitable as discriminators in public life. To the extent that they leak, only that portion that is visible to the public should ever matter.
> And yet the faithful still put their own hateful words in the mouths of their gods or their prophets for the credulous to hear and repeat. They do it for money and for status, and care little for the consequences.
To be honest, that attitude doesn't sound any more enlightened or tolerant than the attitude of the person that was being described.
At least I know that about myself. I don't have to pretend to be a "good person", and can just be a "barely good enough person". I won't judge you if you don't judge me.
If you're my friend--and I do actually have some, shockingly enough--I won't turn my back on you because I don't think you measure up to my standards. It's more likely I'm just avoiding you because I don't think I can measure up to yours, and I'm ashamed and embarrassed of things I have said and done in the past. I can't even imagine how someone could cut someone else out of their life just for being homosexual and still know what friendship means. That person would definitely do exactly the same to me if they ever realized I was atheist, so we can't be friends, ever, even if they thought they wanted to be.
I just can't bring myself to tolerate the intolerable.
If you vote for a person who says they will ban it, then yeah that's actually taking action to deprive another person of their rights. I don't support that and consider it bad.
Thus if voting leads to somebody losing rights that they ought to have, there exists a problem with the larger community more than one bad actor.
There was a lot of uproar a few years back because Brendan Eich donated a relatively small amount of money to a anti-gay-marriage group, but what got me was that nobody he worked with had any idea. It sounded like he treated everyone fairly regardless of orientation.
To me it speaks volumes (positively) about someone's character if they participate in the democratic process, but if their opinion doesn't win out, they're willing to accept it and live with it.
Why I would think what?
>Is the suggestion here that people who are morally sincere can't be bad (whatever their moral views may be)?
No, the suggestion is that morality and ethics are complex cognitive, spiritual, religious, and cultural structures that don't boil down to some silly binary regarding ones stance on one issue.
The point is, saying someone is "bad" on the basis of their view on any one single topic is ridiculous, especially when there is a wide range of opinion on the matter. It's essentialism at its absolute worst. The link I provided shows that 98% of Nigerians have negative views towards homosexuality - do you really think that 98% of Nigerians are bad people? Of course not - there are nuances to these issues.
My greater point is that what I'll call "liberal religiosity" - this idea that if you break in any way from the standard liberal dogma, you are cast as a heretic and judged a "bad" person, like all these supposedly "bad" people in the Midwest who probably go to church every Sunday, help their neighbors out, act decently towards one-another, etc.
>Or is it that you just don't view homophobia as a genuine moral failing?
I'm a live and let live kind of guy.
As a 99.9% libertarian the idea of messing with other peoples sex lives is completely alien to me, but just because others are wrong doesn't make them bad people; I believe it is important to separate the people from their ideas.
None of us are perfect. We all have bad ideas sometimes. That means nobody can be an entirely good person.
But the converse is possible; we can separate the idea from the person. And when judging the merits of the idea, we certainly should.
Consider that if you separate all the ideas from a person, what is left? An empty shell of a body? Does it still have a person in it?
Okay, why were the Nazis evil then? Why weren't they good people who just had awful awful ideas?
Why is it wrong to judge people for the ideas they express and the actions they take?
For nazis may be bad people but for nazis other nazis are good people.
>Why is it wrong to judge people for the ideas they express and the actions they take?
If you must judge then judge by actions not by ideas.
If the problem is that nazis murder people then a "nazi ban" is not the right solution. The solution is to ban murder.
When California did it, they did it with a popular referendum.
If you look at the way people vote, it's not really hypothetical.
https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-urban-archipelago/Co...
Those maps are, of course, a little deceptive because of the population density in urban areas. What looks like a little bit of blue land accounts for over half the population.
Rural Americans have no idea "in God We Trust" is not original, that it was added in 1956, that "under God" was added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954, they have no idea that Article 6 of the constitution explicitly says no religious test will be required to hold public office, and they insist that the 1st amendment does not make the U.S. a secular state. And they think it's a lie that there is such a thing called the Treaty of Tripoli, written by Washington and Adams, ratified unanimously by teh senate, that says "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion".
In the original case of Loving vs Virgina (1967), the state judge pointed to the bible, chapter and verse, as moral and legal justification for anti-miscegenation laws. Interracial marriage was illegal in nearly 1/2 the states up until that time. And the same arguments then were the same nut bag religious arguments used most recently with those opposed to gay marriage, and transgendered people having equal rights.
Is there really a conversation to be had here? The racism, bigotry, misogyny, sure they all pre-exist religion, but they are enhanced, coddled, protected, by the most popular variety of it in rural white America. I would never work or live there. I don't even care to visit. And I see no time in the near future where this will not be true. They do not want their culture to change. There is nothing wrong with it. Everything wrong is with the gays, the godless, the Muslims, and the illegal immigrants stealing white American jobs, and sluts having abortions. And they have a president who perfectly represents them in helping them blame others for their problems.
'And this be our motto-"In God is our Trust"'. From the 4th verse of The Star-Spangled Banner, written in 1814. (You did know that it has four verses, right?)
Now, The Star-Spangled Banner wasn't officially the national anthem until 1931, and "In God We Trust" wasn't officially the national motto even then. But the idea of that as the motto is far from new, even if it wasn't officially true.
I think it’s helpful also to recognize that while it is indisputably right that LGBT people have full equal rights and standing, that idea is relatively new to the broader discourse. It’s going to take a little time for it to fully sink in everywhere, the wrong perspective has a large historical head start. I firmly believe it will happen, just over 50 years ago we had explicit Jim Crow in the south. While there’s still a ways to go, it’s amazing how much progress we’ve made in such short time.
But for that to happen I think we have to be a bit patient and willing to talk to people whose views we might find cringeworthy. You can’t persuade someone you’re not communicating with.
Most gays don't come out of the closet in religious families, they fear for their life for a reason. The mere fact those who do come out sometimes are a potent change for their families, proves how impotent the religion is when it comes to protecting those same LGBT who put their lives on the line when they come out.
Just two days ago, a southern evangelical asserted to me, "literally gays brought about the end of nations, being gay should not be legal let alone gay marriage." Listen to a translation of this: Gay's are seditious, they are traitors to their country, they commit treason. In the U.S. the only crime that calls for the death penalty is treason.
Considering this merely cringeworthy, needing patience and persuasion? I think the body count of dead LGBT, black, brown, women, children, Muslim, Jew, and many other minorities, is sufficiently high that no more such coddling should be on the agenda.
Advocacy of violence and discrimination should be taken seriously, not suddenly papered over with calls to patience and persuasion just because it's backed by religious belief. Too many people in urban areas have no concept of violent religion and probably think it doesn't exist in America. Newsflash city people! You're ignorant! I for one am not amazed at all, I'm appalled and feel betrayed by how long the progress thus far has taken.
The person you mention holds truly awful views. And I don't know what to tell you, except that at least some people can change. I've seen it myself and I'll cop to when I was younger being squeamish about gay marriage. A decade later I was jubilant when Obergefell came down. Was I a bad person then? Am I better person now? I'd say I wasn't then and I'm still just as imperfect. I just learned more, and although I am ashamed I was wrong, I'm glad I eventually got it right.
Dan Savage gives as advice to people coming out to their families to give their relatives a year to be offensive. A year to ask the just plain ignorant questions. After that, there's a hard space to say, "you accept me or I'm out". Obviously that has its own problems in certain situations, but given the years he's been giving it, it sounds like its been working and it gives voice to the spirit of what I'm advocating.
I think plenty of people hate the gays, the jews, the browns and whoever else. Plenty of those will never change, I can't defend those. But I think many more will, and I think we have to find a way to create the space for them to change without coming at them straight out of the gates with moral condemnation. Good people can be misguided, but they'll never come around if we start from, "you're evil". That said at some point, if you willfully refuse to see the light, there is an end to the conversation.
Aren't those called "cities?"
arent ashamed to force their backwoods culture on you from the hinterlands
I lived in Cincinnati Ohio for 5 years. How did people force their backwoods culture on you? I had zero culture forced upon me. I was the subject of a targeted racial harassment once, and I remember one unpleasant discussion with a cringe-inducing person once. Most people there in the late 90's/early 2000's were fairly live and let live. Where they weren't, aside from the above, much of this came from the Left, as an instance of the left eating itself.
I'm not the OP, but this seemed pretty clear:
"I was tired of my state representatives writing my sexual preference off as a disorder. I was angry when the state decided a pharmacist could refuse to sell me birth control and I hated the legislative decree that tried to exert control over what gender got to use the bathroom or not. In short, I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election. Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose, but at least I dont have to worry about the ten commandments showing up at the DMV in stone or some toothless anti-shariah legislation burning through my tax dollars."
And from that, I take it that nothing ever happened to him in-person. Did another person do something to him in particular? I think that says a lot more about culture than news/politics issues. From that standpoint, my life here in the Bay Area scores a lot lower than my life in Houston or Cincinnati.
A) Things did happen to him. Being denied birth control is a thing that happened to him and his partners. I don't really understand the "in person" qualifier you tacked on. Are you implying people in the Bay Area are "doing something to you in particular that happened to you in person?" Any examples? B) "I think that says a lot more about culture than news/politics issues. From that standpoint, my life here in the Bay Area scores a lot lower than my life in Houston or Cincinnati." I'm not sure I follow here? The OP was talking about a situation where they lived outside the bay area and left that other place because they felt picked on and are feeling more comfortable in the bay area. You've decided that this is "about culture", and then immediately jump to "this is why Houston is better than the Bay Area", which makes no sense whatsoever.
I don't know where you're from in the Midwest, but the vast majority of people I interact with around here are extremely live-and-let-live. In fact I can't remember the last time I came across someone or a situation that was actively hostile about beliefs or sexual orientation. Obviously these are just my anecdotes, but I run in a pretty sexually and racially diverse scene and they all love Columbus as well.
Your hyperbole and vindictive reactions to a diverse region of the country are certainly going to help close the divide.
A Democrat just won in Alabama. It's about motivation for voting. The research triangle in NC is the most heavily populated area in NC, it should carry the state with 1/5 of the state's people living there and actually voting.
Culture is the #1 reason that I have no desire to move back to Columbus.
Further, why is it their responsibility to "help closer the divide" when the other side does not believe they should have fundamental rights?
That's the attitude that I like. I can't stand false liberals and progressives. Nobody gets to tell anyone how to live their lives. If I wanted that I'd move to a rural village in Pakistan.
California doesn't fight the culture war? California is the primary exporter of the left-wing culture. It just happens to conform to your political leanings, so you like it there. And THAT'S OKAY, I'm not saying you are wrong, you're just now on the side that you agree with.
>Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose
Who cares about home ownership when you can use whatever public toilet you want!
"Who cares about home ownership when you can use whatever public toilet you want!"
You mean they're allowed to exist in public? If you are not allowed to use the bathroom that corresponds to your identity, you're basically not allowed to use the bathroom in public at all. Which means you're not really allowed to be in public at all.
The article went on to describe how feminists who hold such views have been subject to literal physical attack by others on the left.
I'm pretty sure I can paint something in that as "denying people fundamental rights"...
If I’m following you correctly here, because you can’t use whichever public toilet you want, you are denied a fundamental right, stripped of all public personhood, and not allowed to even venture outside at all.
Are you being serious or are you trolling me?
And, quite frankly, being unable to empathise with those who are different than you kinda indicates to me you never were inclined to the left, and used that opening paragraph to drum up fake support.
If it's unjust to segregate public facilities on the basis of sex, it's certainly unjust to segregate said facilities on the basis of gender identity.
That's the idea behind single person restroom facilities, and it's a pretty good one. Unfortunately, in many places it just isn't feasible to renovate the existing facilities. And having a multi user restroom not be set up like that exposes people to the same dangers as if a trans woman was forced to use the men's room.
If men’s restrooms are dangerous for trans women then certainly they are dangerous for gay or gender-nonconforming men as well. These men certainly have as much right to avoid a dangerous situation as trans women do, no?
>Kansas
We have very different ideas of what states qualify as the midwest.
Funny, I know plenty of people who want to leave east coast cities for the exact same reason with the political poles switched.
Not by a landslide. There's a reason it's called a "swing state." (and, regrettably, it's not because the kids dress up and go dancing...)
> The midwests relationship with silicon valley terminates at the facebook, google, and twitter HTTP connection for a damn good reason.
Let's be honest, that is a pretty closed-minded thing to say.
There's a second problem that comes about when these rare combination of things come together - which has to do with cap tables... In that good teams get pummeled on early stage valuations compared to the coasts, resulting in exits that return far less to founders than investors (and thus stunt "the ecosystem" growth that exists in SV), but this is secondary to above IMHO.
edit: I ask this because in Portugal we also lack the entrepreneurial mass to match the tech talent.
The problem is what you'd expect in fact: network effects, hyper concentrated talent pools, extraordinary expertise, very large amounts of capital tilted toward higher risk / higher return pursuits.
If you're in Kansas and have the next big tech idea...
- If it requires significant venture capital, you're not going to be able to locate that capital in Kansas. The capital available in Kansas, isn't interested (it's only interested in hindsight; Silicon Valley capital is actually often interested a decade or two before an idea / business concept is ready to boom, which produces a constant cycle of being early with things, which finally only work years later). If you're in Kansas and need to raise $100m or $300 million over six years to build the next great fast growing technology business, you will not be able to find that scale of VC there, period. I can't emphasize that enough, there is no scenario under which you will ever raise that capital in Kansas - it did something like $13m in total traditional VC deals in 2016.
- If it requires the most talented engineers (and lots of them) to scale big + fast (ie the engineers that are among the best in the world at that thing), you're not going to find that talent in Kansas. The hyper concetrated talent pools available in California, give you that critical mass for almost any given technology focus. You see similar effects for eg biotech in the greater Boston area (which gives that area vast advantages for the next great biotech start-up as opposed to somewhere in Ohio).
- If you need exceptionally talented managers, with experience at building large, fast growing, cutting-edge technology companies. You're not going to find very many of them in Kansas. There's an immense experience advantage in Silicon Valley, generations of it has built-up in fact. These people make a critical difference during any kind of meaningful ramp growth phase.
- If you need the world's best venture capitalists, to help steer your new tech company through all the typical dangers for such a company, you're not going to find them in Kansas. The best VCs can help you recruit in a huge way, for both executives and engineers; they can steer you through all sorts of problems in fund raising and public relations; they can push through political obstacles with their connections and wealth (ie pick up the phone and get someone politically powerful in Washington DC on the other end of the line). A VC in Kansas has no ability to do most of those things.
The list just keeps going.
In short: the risk capital isn't there, the hyper concentrated large talent pools for a given expertise are not there, the management experience is not there, the venture capitalists are not there. There are plenty of entrepreneurs to go around, and if they want to create the next great tech company they usually have to leave for all the previously listed reasons.
IMO the VC culture in the midwest is also a lot more conservative. The money isn't held by former programmers, as they are in SF. They're usually more finance execs.
Operating costs here are so cheap, and a lot of uninspired talent around. You can tell because of the sheer number of consulting firms in the midwest. There just aren't enough great companies to keep people's interest. Anyone who's worth their salt leaves, and then comes back when they want a family.
The sad truth is, it's not a coincidence that so many of the biggest economies in the world are built inside of self-perpetuated real estate bubbles. Pockets of land trapped in by ocean and mountains. There's a feedback loop involved in companies that get big enough to own their own buildings, their companies' continued growth drives up the value of their real estate which they can re-finance for easy loans.
There's plenty of people who think it makes sense to take the startup culture to cheaper areas like the midwest or Austin. And they "succeed" in founding profitable startups. But they'll never create the next great thing, specifically because the big companies in big cities didn't succeed in spite of their higher costs, but because of them.
I think if I wanted to move silicon valley I'd look for some cheap semi-peninsular coastal city which is currently priced like a midwest city. Then I would drive up that price. I've eyed Charleston SC as a potential target but I've never actually been there to know if that makes sense.
Since then I've lived on the east and the west coast (in popular, expensive cities), and nearly all of my classmates are no different. Places they go other than those two coasts? Other well known places... The Texas Triangle, Colorado, Chicago, Florida...
It's exciting and fun to think that the "next Silicon Valley" will pop up in one of those midwest cities that has been in decline since the mid-20th century... But the truth is, if there is going to be a "new Silicon Valley", it will be in a boring, popular (probably expensive) place... I'd sooner bet on the Texas Triangle...
Without at least those two the Midwest don't even stand a chance.
Requiring assignment of employee's rights to inventions
- Conditions.
(1) A provision in an employment agreement which provides
that an employee shall assign or offer to assign any of
the employee's rights in an invention to the employer
does not apply to an invention for which no equipment,
supplies, facilities, or trade secret information of the
employer was used and which was developed entirely on
the employee's own time, unless (a) the invention
relates (i) directly to the business of the employer, or
(ii) to the employer's actual or demonstrably
anticipated research or development, or (b) the
invention results from any work performed by the
employee for the employer. Any provision which purports
to apply to such an invention is to that extent against
the public policy of this state and is to that extent
void and unenforceable.
(2) An employer shall not require a provision made void
and unenforceable by subsection (1) of this section as a
condition of employment or continuing employment.
(3) If an employment agreement entered into after
September 1, 1979, contains a provision requiring the
employee to assign any of the employee's rights in any
invention to the employer, the employer must also, at
the time the agreement is made, provide a written
notification to the employee that the agreement does not
apply to an invention for which no equipment, supplies,
facility, or trade secret information of the employer
was used and which was developed entirely on the
employee's own time, unless (a) the invention relates
(i) directly to the business of the employer, or (ii)
to the employer's actual or demonstrably anticipated
research or development, or (b) the invention results
from any work preformed [performed] by the employee for
the employer.
[1] This is not legal advice.
The IP protections are important because they mean that anyone can actually start a business, let it grow on the side, then, when ready, jump ship. All of this without fear that your employer, who is doing nothing for the side business that you're working on, will come and take it all. This key piece of legislation enables most of SVs success.
Do you know how competition is measured? How similar or dissimilar can side projects?
http://horowlaw.com/employment-law/non-compete-law-in-minnes...
The law of non-competes in Minnesota is entirely court-made, in contrast to states such as Wisconsin and North Dakota, where it is governed by statute. See Wis. Stat. § 103.465; N.D. Cent. Code, § 9-08-06. Non-competes are “disfavored” under Minnesota law for being a partial restraint on trade. As such, they are to be strictly construed, with any ambiguities interpreted against the employer. Lemon v. Gressman (Minn.App. 1999).
Acceptable interests include (1) protecting against deflection of trade; (2) protecting confidential business information and trade secrets; and (3) protecting customer goodwill. The question boils down to whether the departing employee can hurt the former employer.
I've only seen one issue of a non-compete being enforced is when a reporter went to a competitor and took the same job and was accused of taking confidential information to his new employer. The judge ruled against the reporter and banned him from working at the competitor for one year:
Higgs wrote that given Ridder's past conduct and his cavalier attitude toward his use and disclosure of confidential Pioneer Press information, it seems to the court that his past actual misappropriation is a good indicator of possible future use of that information.
The court said there is also a substantial threat that Ridder will further misappropriate confidential Pioneer Press information, or use the confidential information in the future.
The judge ruled that restraining Ridder from further misappropriating confidential Pioneer Press information is necessary to prevent further injury to the St. Paul paper's competitive position in the industry.
Make a note the story is from 2007. A decade ago and I haven't seen any case remotely close to this since then.
Perceived culture in the Midwest is also problematic.
USA is dependent on immigration to fill the science and engineering workforce, which is one of the ingredients of SV revolution. (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43061.pdf) Someone denying there is no racism/xenophobia issue in the Midwest isn't listening in my opinion.
My intuition is that the sex appeal of SV versus Midwest won't be compensated solely by VC money. It will require a cultural change, which has been going backwards those last 10 years imo. And that's why the author wrote this article - not to inform us that Midwest is good, but because there is a real issue in getting talents to the Midwest.
For whatever reason, Canada seems to be able to produce a real contender only occasionally. True, we had RIM and before that Nortel. But RIM is a shadow of what it once was, and Nortel is long gone.
In tech, Canada is a backwater, and seems likely to stay that way.
You say this, but still the Detroit area hosts quite a large immigrant population, many from a group that experiences a lot of hate in the US (Arabs), though I'll admit, it's probably because the city is on the border with Canada, which makes it an easier place to get to given many immigrants here initially went to Canada from their home countries.
Still, the region isn't alien to the idea of bringing in foreign labor to fill in employment gaps, it's pretty common at least in Detroit, and I imagine Chicago as well.
(a) Any provision in an employment agreement which
provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to
assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his
or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the
employee developed entirely on his or her own time
without using the employer’s equipment, supplies,
facilities, or trade secret information except for
those inventions that either:
(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to
practice of the invention to the employer’s business,
or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or
development of the employer; or
(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for
the employer.
(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement
purports to require an employee to assign an invention
otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned
under subdivision (a), the provision is against the
public policy of this state and is unenforceable.
[0] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x....
He said it was slow going at first, until they moved to the Bay Area and started going to meetups. He said that meeting potential customers in person was what really accelerated their initial adoption, far more than their write-ups in the press or their "free customers" from their accelerator program.
My point is, that will be hard to replicate anywhere else for a long time. The density of startups and the opportunities that presents will be hard to have somewhere else -- it's a chicken and egg problem.
I had a friend who started a VC in Montreal. You know what happened as soon as the companies got successful? They took a round from a VC in the Bay Area and then moved here. They kept their dev office in Montreal for the "cheap labor" but made their HQ here.
I suspect that is what will happen with these investments too. Most of the companies will probably leave Ohio when they get successful.
And then they'll exit and have a bunch of money to invest where they now live -- the Bay Area.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/429589/walmarts-new-high-...
Adidas North America hq is located in Portland. https://www.adidas-group.com/en/group/headquarters/
Plus, engineering is core to many tech startups. It's a big change in the industry that they are successful having the dev teams back home and bay area investors are cool with that! (disclaimer: I'm the founder of a midwest-startup with coastal VC)
Interestingly, Cleveland in the early 20th century provides a case study that compares favorably to modern Silicon Valley. The key? Access to capital.
First, we have John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Why did Rockefeller move Standard Oil's headquarters from Cleveland to New York City? Two main reasons: 1) a concentration of financiers that he needed to continue to grow his business and 2) oil was flowing to large port cities as the international markets grew exponentially lessening Cleveland's importance in the network. [1]
These were both rational reasons for moving and the second represented a fundamental shift in the oil business.
A research article into Cleveland's entrepreneurial decline in the 20th century points to a similar finding:
"Additional contributing factors may include the destruction of the complementary financial institutions that had supported entrepreneurial ventures in the region and changes in the regulatory regime that advantaged New York and made it difficult for regional capital markets like Cleveland‘s to recover their earlier vibrancy." [2]
In the early 1900's Cleveland was described as such:
"It was also an important entrepreneurial center, with well-developed, largely informal, networks linking inventors to new sources of capital and to product markets." [2] This sounds a lot like Silicon Valley and especially what you describe in your comment.
[0] Yes, cases could be made that housing in the Bay area, unfavorable immigration climate, increased competition from abroad, and even the maturation of the current mobile environment represent viable threats to the long-term entrepreneurial dominance of the Valley.
[1] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow
[2] The Decline of an Innovative Region: Cleveland, Ohio, in the Twentieth Century by Naomi Lamoreaux and Margaret Levenstein http://www.econ.ucla.edu/people/papers/Lamoreaux/Lamoreaux47...
What about climate change and the impending major droughts in the next 5-10 years?
It's a little disheartening whenever this kind of braindrain happens. This prevents other ecosystems from forming.
Critical thinking, finding problems, identifying opportunities, assessing risk, "what if...?", product, UX, etc. That's where the magic happens.
I think what got me the most was a dearth of jobs outside finance & Content Management Systems.
I'm at a tailgate, a curious friend of mine reveals that he was trying to learn Ruby. I ask a couple very _basic_ questions, and I get looks of "not here".
Anything too technical comes across as exclusionary. The nice thing about SF is that every third person you run into is an engineer, so you never have that social problem. In fact, you have the opposite problem of always defaulting to "talking shop" with someone new.
I worked out of Columbus for a week and REALLY loved it, but getting up before sunrise to get in a morning run while it was 'only' 75f and 127% humidity was a real downer. I think I could stomach the winters more than the summers.
Geographically, Texas and the east coast near North/South Carolina are the most likely places for the next silicon valley. Both are in proximity to large population centres and have relatively good weather, cheap COL, low taxes, and plenty of 'natural beauty' type things that rich people like. Hills, driving distance to ocean, forests, etc...
I lived in the Midwest and IMO it's mostly cold flat and boring endless farmland with little natural beauty and no access to large water bodies outside of Chicago area. It also has high taxes and cost of living. Not really anything attractive about starting business is there.
All those well-heeled Manhattanites might have something to say about that.
For me it's not even the heat that's the problem, it's the goddamn smell of hot garbage. At least the outer boroughs are better in that regard to Manhattan.
Summer can be gross in the middle of Manhattan due to the density and trash smells, but Brooklyn was just fine.
Snow is an issue if you live in the suburbs and need to drive everywhere, I'll grant you that.
Miami Beach and even Cancun are a short flight away.
Source: nostalgic ex-NYer now living somewhere with a "good climate."
Ehhhhhh, about 15 minutes after the first snow you prep yourself for spending the next 5 months or so sloshing through giant deep puddles of pitch-black semi-frozen slush. Plus everything ends up with a fine dusting of road salt.
Source: six years in Manhattan.
The great state of Michigan would like to have a word with you.
It also has high taxes and cost of living.
Wait a minute, are we still talking about the Midwest of the United States? Because high taxes and COL are the last two things I think of when I think “Midwest”.
But cold, flat, and boring I’ll grant you. I don’t live in Indiana anymore for good reason.
This article asserts that Illinois has the highest overall tax burden in the nation: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-has-highest-overall-...
Also this article shows Effective total state and local taxes in 2017. Illinois ranks the highest at $8,011 median per household, while California ranks almost at the bottom, at $4,774: https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer...
Okay, but if you look closer I bet you can see the problem there. That chart refers to the "Median US Household" defined thus: annual income of $54,286 (mean third quintile U.S. income); owns a home valued at $178,600 (median U.S. home value). In Silicon Valley, that comparison would be between someone earning poverty-level wages who inherited a shack on the edge of town versus a reasonably comfortable midwesterner.
In this comparison between IL and CA we're making, the cost of living and real estate completely dwarfs the tax burden in its effect on the lower ranks in Northern CA. The difference in income tax would be hugely in favor of IL if you were at the very high end. Perhaps there's some middle ground where IL looks worse in the comparison, but I wonder if you'd really be better off financially in California. (edit: Northern California)
That being said, the compensation in California is a lot, lot higher to help offset that, at least for our field. But I'm still not too interested in moving out there because I would have to basically give up on owning a home for quite some time, whereas I can afford to buy a nice house in the suburbs right now in Chicago. Also other reasons, like all my friends and family are here.
But, the property taxes are so high here that a lot of people pay more in taxes than they do on their mortgage, which is just odd. I could get a place equally far away from Chicago but over the border in Indiana and be paying almost a third as much in property taxes.
I'd be tempted to make the commute from Indiana to Chicago. Isn't there a train for it and everything? The commute's no worse than many in CA, although I suspect for a native it's viewed as a little extreme. (and of course, there's a lot to be said for actually living in Chicago)
Most of my family and friends are also there, but it was a lot better for my financial future and retirement to move away, enough that it was worth leaving friends and family behind.
Illinois has the highest move out rate of any state. And the average income of people moving in is almost 20k lower than the average for people moving out. The government is also in tatters and the college system is languishing from lack of funding. It has one of the highest rates of students going to school out of state and college costs are astronomical because the state doesn't even give their public universities much.
Corruption in the Illinois government is unbelievably bad and the state is basically run by Madigan and a network of powerful unions with historic mob ties.
IMO you're probably much better off in Indiana financially if you're looking at your and potentially children's financial futures. I would really do the COL math before you buy a house there.
My disposable income increased from essentially zero to about 35k a year from a strategic move to a state with higher software engineer demand and much lower tax burden.
And I'll admit, it's rather nice being close to family for simple things, like having someone who you can trust to come by and take care of your dog so you can head out all day, rather than being forced to board him. If we're going to have children in the next couple of years, we'll have free babysitting help, which I hear from other parents is worth a whole lot more to your sanity than a higher salary.
And between the two of us, we do alright financially. We are tighter than we'd like to be, but that's mainly due to both of us still having student loans to pay off than anything else. Once those are paid off we'll have a lot more breathing room (although that will still be a few years).
But the job climate is pretty bad here, I'll agree. I'm not really looking forward to my next job search. I probably should start looking already, but the last two were pretty rough, so I'm not looking forward to it and have been dragging my feet getting started.
I also know first hand how tough the universities have it right now, as I used to work for one and I have family that still works at one. I've heard that the state has been as much as a year behind on the money they're supposed to be paying the public schools.
Also there was the proposed bill to privatize all the public universities put up a year ago I think, which to me is the most ludicrous idea ever and I'm surprised he was taken seriously.
Free babysitting help is worth a lot, but depending on your wife's career it still might make financial sense to move. If you're in the Chicago area like most people in Illinois, Indiana is doing great(for the Midwest), and Michigan's economy is still way better than Illinois. Madison is a tech hotspot and a great place to raise a family too.
Two out of three software companies I interviewed at in Illinois shuttered their offices in the state in the last two years. The companies that are staying are all going downtown. Software jobs are pretty damn rare out in the suburbs and it was definitely a bunch of 'take what you can get' shittily run companies because they could be.
I LOVE winter here, couldn't live without it. Yes, I love the cold. Dress properly and it is quite enjoyable.
I'm by no means "rich" but I make well into six figures in software and I love this area and would find it hard to move anywhere else.
Occasionally I visit one of my clients that is in Silicon Valley. While California is absolutely gorgeous in certain areas I find the highways and dreary brown awful for the most part. The only time I really enjoy it is in very early spring (Feb-Apr) when it is green for a short period of time.
I think that within a 10 km radius of my parents', there are at least 4 streets that are named "mosquito [lane,street,road]" and by god are they aptly named (in the summertime).
Minnesota seems to be almost Scandinavian in some aspects and I do find it absolutely beautiful.
The Chicago metro area has almost 9.5 million residents, 2.8 in the city proper. The larger Great Lakes Basin, depending on how you look at it, has anywhere from 35 to 60 million residents.
> cheap COL
Chicago can be pricey, but almost every other major city in the region is around 20% less costly than Austin (using Austin since it's got the largest pull of your mentioned alternatives).
Georgia, it would seem. If being in New York isn't the key point of the show, chances are it is filmed in Georgia nowadays.
The expensive parts have moved elsewhere (principal photography and special effects) because it’s easy to transmit data, but all the stuff that comes before and after still happens in Hollywood for the most part.
So you'll concede that a strong cost play exists to move away, and are basically betting that inertia maintains the status quo?
Good luck. ;)
With 2Gbps fibre connections there is no reason to think that places are required to be geographically in the same area.
Companies don't seem to find it very hard to move filming locations based on what state is offering them the most money.
Craiglist has unbelievable traction, just as Silicon Valley.
If you want to be the next Silicon Valley or even 1/10th of its quality, it requires at least 20 years of work.
When it comes to actual innovation I have yet to find anything comes close to the level Cambridge/Boston is on, especially in life sciences & AI. If only it weren't for the frigid winters...
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2017/10/bos...
That said, while California does have a lot more VC funding, New York and Massachusetts and #2 and #3 even though Boston/Cambridge in particular tend to not be mentioned in these kind of discussions.
https://ssti.org/blog/useful-stats-venture-capital-dollars-a...
That said tho, the cambridge intellectual bubble is real and has its advantages
The rule of thumb I've seen is that technologies are invented in Boston and commercialized out West (either in SV or Seattle). Microsoft, Facebook, Reddit, YCombinator, and DropBox are all Boston startups...but you wouldn't know it unless you're intimately familiar with their histories.
This has a lot to do with the business cultures of the respective places. When I was working in Boston, the message I got was "Work hard for 30 years, build up expertise, and then maybe you can get a VC to fund your startup - but only if it's in an industry where you know who your customers are and how to make money!" And then Google came calling and was like "Wanna help us redesign the search results page?", and I saw many of my colleagues leave and successfully found startups, and folks here are like "Got an idea? Just go quit and start working on it, and if it turns out to be worth anything funding will be available."
I'd say that Boston understands technology better than Silicon Valley, but aren't very savvy about how to apply it for maximum impact. In Boston, people really really want to be smart, and thorough, and innovative, and fully explore all the implications of what they're doing before they bring it to market. In Silicon Valley, people are like "You know a tiny bit more about something than somebody somewhere else? Great, bring it to market, listen to feedback, and then go hire some smart MIT grads to work out the details."
The market seems to reward the latter approach much better. Silicon Valley's internalized the counterintuitive market maxim of "It's better to be differentiated than good", while Boston is still hung up on being good.
It seems like Boston has a few good unis, which SV also has. So, the number of good ideas that come out of it are maybe equal, but all of the rest (which is 95%) that comes after, is 100x better in SV, no?
As an 85er I grew up on IRC, AIM, Gchat, etc.
I just moved into my first management role. It only took me a few months to realize I'm a better manager of remote staff than in person staff. I actually prefer remote now. I'm not in tech nor am I someone who's considered socially awkward or anxious at all.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot going on in zhongguangcun and Shenzhen, it’s just mostly chinese startups employing Chinese, nothing like SV at all.
Seems there are different definitions of "SV". Mine is a geographic region with the unique combination of ingredients for incubating new technologies into valuable businesses and services that mature to some form of market liquidity. Has nothing to do with where they hire their employees from.
This is pretty short-sighted and naval gazing, but I cbf to argue it. I'll just point out there are people with far more credibility than HN rando's demonstrating with their actions the opposite of what you're saying. [1]
[1]:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-04/cook-kiss...
I mean, where else is there in the midwest? Illinois is dying under poor governance and high taxes (pension obligations are constitutionally protected until hell freezes over). Indiana and Ohio just don't seem prosperous. Maybe Atlanta Georgia is the only other growing mid-size city outside of the coasts?
Well...
Especially a satellite office.
Ryan: “I’ve actually done a lot of market research and it actually turns out that southwestern Ohio is going to be the next Silicon Valley. They call it the Silicon Prairie.”
For those not familiar with the episode: the character is totally full of crap; trying to explain that his reason for moving to Ohio has nothing to do with his ex-girlfriend moving to Ohio. Funny to see "Ohio is going to be the next Silicon Valley" come around again (but this time in actual news).
Silicon Valley isn't a pin on a map. It's a culture. It's a collective mindset. It's a process. It's a high-tech Wild West.
It's also an outlier.
Startups + VCs !== Silicon Valley. It's more complex and more complicated than that.
Even the successful tech investor there, who seemed more lucky than anything, didn't have a clue what I was talking about or why anyone might want to do that. I also went to the local small business offices seeking help and they didn't get it either. If you weren't an automotive, manufacturing or physical product company, they didn't take you seriously, didn't know what you were talking about and didn't see value in anything computer or web related.
I also didn't really know anyone remotely interested in the web or linux except one guy. If I had to sum it up I'd say that they're generally quite a few years behind in everything from technology to civil rights. Finding good employees will be hard but possible. Finding forward thinkers is going to be exceedingly difficult. When I lost my job working on microsoft products at an automotive logistics company, I gave up on Ohio and moved to SF. It was one of the best decisions of my life. Since I moved it's been horrifyingly clear that Ohio is in a downward spiral. I joke that I'd sleep on the ground in SF before I'd go back to Ohio but I'm not entirely sure it's a joke.
That is wrong kind of thinking, but here is my 2-cent thesis, Tech has not outgrown into such mature industry, you will have whole series of regions with robust tech and venture economies, so in that sense there won't be one next silicon valley, but a whole series of mini-silicon vallies.
Detroit and Chicago are not much different.
Edit: Source: I lived in Cleveland ~20 yrs
Meanwhile, I had a layover in Minneapolis and at the Mall of America, there were women in hijabs everywhere.
Obviously I can't speak to the experience of minorities in various locations, but it's hardly fair to paint the midwest with the brush of non-diversity.
Also, if anything, having your experience of "diversity" colored primarily by your interactions with highly-educated immigrant communities doesn't really help you understand how the broader immigrant communities integrate into the country as a whole.
Universities are rich and white with a pinch of token racial diversity. "Diverse talent" maybe. Diverse relative to any random small city people from a few states over haven't heard of they are not.
The major difference you might be alluding to is culture. I think in California major cities, it seems people react and demand quick action by the government to any perceived social injustice. In in the Midwest, I'd say perceived social injustices are usually corrected by community outreach, not government action. I think this is a major difference that should be studied. People in the midwest generally don't like the government in their business, as contrasted to the coastal cities, they appear to see it as the proper way to fix problems.
You probably don't want to be the "next SV" if you want to keep it that way.
The idea that attitudes toward "action by government" are significant in explaining the absence of tech from Kansas is nuts. The density of talent and the presence of tech-smart capital are controlling variables.
> Black or African American: 53.3%
> White: 37.3% (33.4% Non-Hispanic Whites)
> Asians: 1.8% (0.7% Chinese, 0.4% Indian, 0.2% Vietnamese, 0.2% Filipino)
> Native American: 0.3%
> Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders: 0.01%
> Two or more races: 2.8%
> Some other race: 4.5%
> Hispanic and Latino Americans of any race: 10.0% (7.4% Puerto Rican, 1.3% Ecuadorian, 0.9% Mexican, 0.3% Dominican, 0.2% Guatemalan, 0.2% Salvadoran)
> Amongst the city's white population, 9.9% were of German, 8.1% Irish, 5.0% Italian, 4.3% Polish, 2.8% English, 1.6% Slovak, and 1.5% Hungarian ancestry according to Census 2010.
> 8,796 Clevelanders were born in Europe.
Also note that the "white" ethnic groups are very active in Cleveland. There are Slovenian, Ukranian, Croatian, and Hungarian dance groups (probably more, but these are the ones I have first hand experience with).
Columbus ranks 15th in the nation for LGBT populations.
I now live in Denver, CO. That's a city where diversity is a real issue. Majority of people are white, bearded (males), and wear flannel (both).
It's interesting that you're Slovenian, though. Here's a question for you. According to your definition of "diversity" does the fact that Cleveland has the largest Slovenian population outside of Slovenia make it more diverse? Does the fact that Cleveland's ethnicities tend to form their own neighborhoods indicate less diversity, somehow? I always thought it was cool that Beachwood had the highest concentration of Jews anywhere outside Israel, but maybe instead of viewing that as an indicator of Cleveland's diversity, people think my God, they're putting their Jews in the ghetto.
San Francisco is 42% White, 33% Asian, 15% Latino, 6% Black.
Chicago is 30% White, 30% Black, 30% Latino, 7% Asian.
This is a great article: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/normal-america-is-not-a...
Integration/segregation is also significantly different.
Ignoring the actual, real world diversity, yep, "both black and whites" is accurate.
Racism is well and alive here on HN, it seems.
It's incredibly ignorant to say Midwest cities don't have people of other ethnic backgrounds, it belittles everything those Midwesterners have worked for in this country.
If I never had the chance to talk to you again, it would be too soon. You disgust me.
If you want to blatantly ignore the diversity that exists in the Midwest to make yourself feel better, that's fine. Just save your lies for someone else, because they're not working here.
Every place in your post where you said the word "they", replace it with "freehunter" and you'll see why you're not helping your cause but just pissing me off even more. Now you're attacking me, and I don't care for it.
"It isn't me who thinks what you imply: it's freehunter. Freehunter's idea of diversity is "we have black folks living here." I'm making fun of that. And I agree: freehunter's idea of diversity generally is disgusting."
I'm a Midwesterner, is that how you actually see me?
I'm from the Midwest, too. I'm certainly not talking about myself when I refer to how bigoted Midwesterners are.
It's a wildly diverse "33% Asian".
It's high time however that startups become more popular in the Midwest. If you are profitable, growing rapidly you can raise venture capital in the Midwest. However that rules out the majority of startups. That's a big reason that our best and brightest make the pilgrimage out West.
What we need to see are startup clusters, let the companies stay in place. In Michigan it is starting to happen, but progress is still woefully slow. Angels are in just as short supply as venture capital.
This is the number one biggest difference between Midwest startups and SV startups. Even Basecamp said it, Midwest startups have to prove their profitability on day one before any VC will pay any serious attention. Whereas in SV, you can get money with just a team and a Powerpoint presentation.
Wonder why there are no unicorns from the Midwest? Because if unicorns made money their valuation would be significantly lower. They're only unicorns because no one knows how much they're worth, and everyone knows exactly how much Midwest startups are worth on day one.
That said, my bet would be Fresno, Brentwood, Sacramento, Morgan Hill, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Madera. California High Speed Rail is going to be a game changer. Plus even today those locations are on the way to VC vacation destinations (i.e. Yosemite, Tahoe, Monterey) which could then be expensed as business travel. And they are in the same timezone.
Reno? Easy. No ecosystem, aside from specialized things (Gigafactory etc).
I would LOVE to start an accelerator type thing just over the border of SLT, CA. But I would expect everyone would leave at the end of the it for a larger metro.
[0]: http://tahoereno.com
You have so many good food and coffee options in SF. In the midwest? Hah, nope. Can I work on my open source without my employer owning it? No. Can I get places easily just by walking or taking Lyft line? Fat chance.
Not to mention, I experienced a shocking level of casual racism growing up there. Culturally it is not a pleasant place to be. No, I don't think we'll be seeing an exodus there any time soon.
I'll give you not wanting to change things, but people here are certainly interested in ensuring the future is good for themselves and their kids - there's just a lack of bullshitting ourselves about changing the world by working on a cell phone application.
>People correspondingly are very content; they immerse theirselves in their families, their relationships, Football, etc.
You say all of that like it's a bad thing. The Midwest is a peaceful place, and I happen to like it that way. I don't want or need a constant bombardment of Things To Do, my situation is exactly where I want it to be.
Honestly, I think the idea that anywhere other than SV is gonna be come SV is silly - but I also do want to help dispel the notion that the Midwest has no technical talent or is unfriendly to tech. We have a lot of tech talent - a large portion of it just ends up leaving for the coasts for better networking rather than setting up shop here, or working for large established companies for steady pay.
There are people from MIT, BBN, CERN, etc. that would like to have a talk with you. (Yes, Stanford was involved early on but pre dot-com, a great deal of the early Internet work was well outside of California.)
Whilst some areas do have the required teir 1 universities and USP eg silcon fen or wider the oxford to cambridge belt a rust belt state is unlikely to succeed.
BTW, my concept seems like it needs to be a nonprofit. It could make money but if that ever corrupts it people would be very unhappy.
You can deal will an anti-corruption slant later.