Forget Silicon: How to Be Steel Valley | Hacker News Reader

Forget Silicon: How to Be Steel Valley

sonyalabs.com

16 pointsrguzman23 comments

I was surprised by how many Pittsburgh hackers were at YAPC::NA this year. The PPW (Pittsburgh Perl Workshop) made a pretty impressive showing with lots of T-shirts around and people talking about it quite a bit, and Pittsburgh.pm won the bidding to be the location of YAPC 2009. The city was completely off the map for me until I realized how many hackers are working there. I'm looking forward to visiting next year for YAPC, anyway. I dunno that I'd want to start a company there, but maybe it's an ideal escape from the high cost of living here in the valley. But the same could be said of Austin, and I'm not wishing I'd stayed in Austin to build my business.

Well, Pittsburgh has CMU which is arguably one of the best computer science schools. It follows that there are going to be hackers around.

Also, the original YAPC was at CMU, that's why it's being brought back for the 10th anniversary.

For what it's worth, I am from Pittsburgh and intend on starting a startup in the Burgh. I have a lot of pride in the Pittsburgh region and consider it a goal of mine to help do a my small part to re-energize the city.

Awesome. Drop me a line if I can help in any way or just to be in touch.

Anyone here in the 'Burgh and interested in machine learning and/or anything related to natural language/comp ling? I'm a research programmer at CMU, taking classes in the above areas with my tuition benefit to get back up to speed (I had previously been out of this field for several years).

I'm interested in talking to and/or meeting anyone with similar interests and an entrepreneurial bent (or any hackers doing something entrepreneurial in Pittsburgh at all, for that matter).

Maybe I should just come up with an acronym for drop me a line. We should sit down and chat sometime. The address is in the profile.

Me too.

I reckon you should call it "steelicon valley". Pretty catchy, huh?

I am employed at a Pittsburgh tech startup (www.pittpatt.com). There seems to be alot of benefits from our perspective to Pittsburgh. The primary difficulty is the prebuilt assumption in the CS/EE programs that you need to leave Pittsburgh to get a good job.

Take a lesson from Spolsky and market directly to the CS/EE school - either on your own or as part of a startup group. Don't wait for students and grads to figure out you're there.

AlphaLabs seems to be offering six-month tourist visas to foreigners. The foreigners happen to be startups, but they do get a house to live in and a little walking-around money.

If they find further rounds of funding in Pittsburgh, there might be a danger of them overstaying. But when it comes to companies that have already demonstrated that they're pretty eager to move where the opportunity is, I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The immigration talked about is only tangentially international immigration. It is more about people who already have the right to work in the US immigrating to Pittsburgh. The other immigration problem is more of a national one and has been the subject of much longer and better articles and posts.

I don't think AlphaLab is offering six-month tourist visas. Doing something like AlphaLab or YC on a tourist visa is likely to be illegal, and I think they would fund a company with people who are abroad only if the circumstances are right. It is still up to the USCIS to grant the visas, anyways.

I was not being literal. Pittsburgh has so much talent that they don't need an incubator that attracts it from elsewhere. They need more appeal to the talent that's already there, like the founders of Buxfer.

By the way, to all who want to understand the deep roots and historical foundations of how the Bay Area got where it is in this ecosystem, let me be the millionth YC reader to recommend The Secret History of Silicon Valley: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=101527

Except, Alphalab primarily appeals to the talent in Pittsburgh. Of all the companies selected for funding, ours (Sonyalabs) is the only one which was founded by non-residents.

Cool. I'm being too gruff. If they shake loose one more startup in the area, even if they have to decamp to warmer climes when their lease is up, that's a great thing for Pittsburgh.

I was happy to see Alpha Labs - we're about 1.5 hours north of Pittsburgh, and plan on applying for the next cycle.

Best of luck with that! Drop me a line if I can help in any way.

Thanks - would love to talk to you about the experience - shoot me your contact info: ak @ my-yc-username dot com

about 1.5 hours north of Pittsburgh

Where? I went to Allegheny College in Meadville.

Contact me off-line or add your email to the "about" box in your profile. Looking forward to talking to you, semigeek.

Wow, this post has brought out a bunch of Pittsburghers...

You guys want to get dinner/drinks some time?

I do! How about Friday night 7/18 or Saturday night 7/19?

Either night works for me..

Pittsburgh is already the Carbide Valley, for what that's worth.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com