The benefits of having startup in silicon valley instead in any other area? | Hacker News Reader

The benefits of having startup in silicon valley instead in any other area?

4 pointsilija1396 comments

Is it worth it to pay high rent, bills and all that just to be in silicon valley? I really don't get the importance of being physically there. Please prove me wrong.

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#1 Talent. Plain and simple, having access to a deep and wide pool of various types of engineering talent is the primary reason for locating in or near the silicon valley. There are not only lots of very high quality universities in the bay area, but we also regularly steal the best and brightest engineers from all over the world whenever possible. If you plan to scale, you will need to hire, and the more skilled and talented your employees are, the better off your company will be.

#2 Personal Connections. Anyone with a clue could scrape together the $20K USD investment offered by YC, but no one can match the connections (and insight) you'd gain from being a YC funded company. YC just happens to be an excellent example, but it's certainly not the only avenue for acquiring connections.

I think it's something to do with the atmosphere and being around such a large group of like minded individuals. But then, I've never been to America let alone silicon valley so, that's purely my take on it as an outsider looking in.

i think the presence of a bubbling community of like minded people is a plus. You are exposed to more talents when you want to hire, there is more accessibility of funds. Oh, the press is going to talk about you.. whatelse? nothing

Where are all these likeminded individuals? Are there places other than meetups to find them?

This was my point. Everybody is talking about like-minded individuals and community, but where do you get to interact with them? Only one benefit I can think of is the exposure of talents, but then again you can find talents everywhere. All in all IMO, having startup in silicon valley is highly overrated.

Nice to see someone has my line of thinking. I'm sure we're not alone. It's probably just not trendy to talk about the valley the way we have.

I like it here, a lot, but I find it very hard to find people who actually have the same product building interests. Plenty of people who like the same tools (RoR, iOS, JS, etc) but much more difficult to find people who are as passionate about X and Y as you are.

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