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Comment by daveschappell | Hacker News Reader

No, I don't think that's it (having lived here for 13 years). I think it's just more that people are focused on their own thing, by and large, vs. getting out with a small % of their time and building a community for the greater good.

This 'problem' is so fixable; we just need another catalyst (like what www.GeneralAssemb.ly and New Work City are doing in NYC... and what TechStars did in Boulder, Seattle, Boston and NYC, and many other examples).

We're just a few nudges away, and there's no doubt we'll get there -- we just need to keep focusing on the good stuff, and it's going to happen.

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That's exactly what we're looking for -- Something like GeneralAssemb.ly in New York.

We're a startup working out of an architecture firm right now. The space is relatively inexpensive, it would be stellar if there were other startups around who are interested in putting together something similar with programming around design and technology.

If you're intersted, reach out to me via twitter (@ashbhoopathy) or email, ash@bettr.at. I'll also email Seattle Tech Startups about it.

>I think it's just more that people are focused on their own thing, by and large, vs. getting out with a small % of their time and building a community for the greater good.

Ya, they're not enough "crazy" people.

I think Seattle needs a big consumer-based (2.0 or 3.0) hit. It needs a Facebook, a Groupon, a Twitter, a Skype, a LinkedIn, an Etsy, a Dropbox.

you mean, like an Amazon? or a Starbucks? :-)

or, if you want to be cynical that Amazon's a long time ago... how about like an AWS, or a Kindle? The innovation's here -- we just need to get more commingling going on

it's going to happen -- if you're in town, reach out, please -- would love to have you help

And there's the fastest selling consumer electronics product in history... the Kinect.

For what it's worth, Lab126 (the Kindle-designing branch of Amazon) is in Cupertino, not Seattle.

But many of the backend services powering Kindle are based in Seattle.

Amazon was a long time ago, and AWS/Kindle, while being great products, did not contain really an element of risk the way a scrappy startup does.

I think parent poster has a point - there aren't a lot of recent examples of taking the risk and having it pay off, which may lead to some risk aversion in the community.

There are some.

For example Big Fish Games. There's also Tableau Software (although not consumer). Neither large compared to Skype, but both ~$100M revenue companies founded about the time of Skype.

UPDATE: After I wrote this I realized what is different about Seattle than the Bay Area, which is something a previous poster put in parentheticals... (web 2.0/3.0). Look at this list:

Facebook, a Groupon, a Twitter, a Skype, a LinkedIn, an Etsy, a Dropbox

These companies, except maybe Dropbox, are about connecting users together. Not about product. Seattle tends to be more focused on providing product. Is it the case that you are less likely to see a Tableau or Mathematica come out of the Bay Area?

Amazon and Microsoft do not like startups - they prefer to build things internally. And when they do buy startups they tend to kill them. Yes, IMDB is a nice exception, and lately they tend to buy firms and let them run on their own (Zappos) but Amazon got too burned during the dot com runup buying firms that turned out to not be a good match, a la Junglee.

I wonder if the problem is that the music scene is so good here in Seattle that the recently graduated want to participate in that area, both as producers and consumers, and not so much in the tech area?

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