Bloomberg begins quest to challenge the West Coast for supremacy in tech | Hacker News Reader

Bloomberg begins quest to challenge the West Coast for supremacy in tech

crainsnewyork.com

11 pointsjamesteow10 comments

Well, they've got one part right: tech centers flow from strong universities, not industrial parks. That said, I think the focus on entrepreneurship may be misguided. MIT, CMU, Stanford, and Berkeley didn't spawn tech loci because they focussed on entrepreneurship, they did so because they were destination schools for the best and brightest Eng and CS students from around the world. If they focussed on building the best possible engineering school, rather than the one most likely to spawn startups, they would paradoxically have a much better chance of spawning startups.

Also, I can't speak for anyone else, but New York simply doesn't appeal to me as a wannabe hacker. I like San Francisco and the surrounding area. I like the culture and the people. New York really doesn't have that same draw for me. That said, for those from the East Coast who would otherwise go to MIT or CMU, a top tier engineering school in New York might well be a viable alternative.

I wonder why modern day robber baron titans of industry don't found universities anymore. Maybe Bloomberg can invest in a Carnegie of his own?

While I too would like to see Mr Bloomberg give some of his (hard-earned) billions away to a good cause, it's too hard to establish a great university over night. He's going the route of inviting top existing research universities to establish a satellite campus of sorts. This is a much smarter approach for attracting talented students and researchers.

This is a wild guess, but perhaps the first new well-funded university of high prestige will be something spun out from the Khan Academy's efforts. It wouldn't be a university in the traditional sense, it may not even have much of a physical campus. But given how much he's supported Khan's efforts, perhaps that could be one of Gates' legacies. A GKU, perhaps?

I think SF is very similar to NYC in the sense that it offers the cultural variety young people want. SF has better weather (except for this damn fog) but for the most part New York has an even bigger cultural draw than SF. The problem is that the universities it has, namely Columbia and NYU, are not in the same league as MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley for engineering, despite being very good schools. Secondly, and more importantly, NYC just doesn't have the same techy density, but it sounds like it's getting there and this could be the sort of initiative to put it over the top.

Not to mention startups compete with jobs on Wall Street for top devs. Though I guess it'd be like starting something here in SV and competing for talent with Facebook/Google.

The advantage that NYC has is it has vastly more top shelf design talent.

I think it's great that New York wants to step its game up in science and engineering, and should be applauded.

However, I think the idea that New York needs to be the capital of technology over Silicon Valley is like if New York tried to become number one in Chicago style pizza, it's just silly.

Technology is going to be a driving force in our economy because technology simply means producing useful things we don't yet have. To make it about some kind of dominance over another state within the same country is unnecessary, just grow your own legacy.

I suspect this is more about the temporary employment boost that having a major university in a city can bring than the long-term employment benefits that an economy based on scientific and technological prowess can bring.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the picture today implies that the technology sector doesn't tend to create a lot of jobs, even when it creates extremely useful inovations or novel avenues of entertainment.

Awesome. Anything that brings more interest to math and sciences is good in my book.

I agree! I also favor government giving its largesse back to the actual owners, in any format. Here, "The city is offering real estate on Governors Island, Roosevelt Island or at the Brooklyn Navy Yard at virtually no cost..." I hope it works! Those areas are a little off the beaten path. Roosevelt Island is very interesting because it is very close to NYC.

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