NYC isn't catching the Valley anytime soon: Reflections on Startup School
blog.tutorspree.com
blog.tutorspree.com
Somebody who founds a company worth $5 billion is royalty in Silicon Valley. Around Wall Street you'll find fresh-faced kids with nothing more than degrees from Andover and Yale running hedge funds bigger than that. Much more money for much less work, risk and accomplishment.
You just can't make enough money from startups to impress people in NYC.
Other than that I'll say that NYC has the most formal dress code of anywhere I've been. You can show up in "hacker costume" that includes clean denim and a t-shirt that fits in any town other than NYC. In NYC, people ~will~ hold it against you if you don't wear a button down, tie and all that.
My motto is "when in rome", but it's not an attitude that's welcoming of tech talent.
I know plenty of people that go to work in jeans and a t-shirt, and no one holds it against them. Personally, I prefer to dress a little bit nicer; not to mention that (other than during the summer), the weather dictates the dress code to a large extent.
I could go on with more counter examples, but the point is, you have a very narrow view of what NYC is actually like.
* P.S., re: Coffee: Try the Ace Hotel lobby on 29th between Broadway and 5th. There is an independently-run Stumptown Coffee shop attached (best coffee in NYC) and I'm there virtually every Sunday working on my laptop. With their free wifi. Along with about 20 other people doing the same thing.
I'll second La Colombe and Gimme Coffee in Soho!
Where do these numbers come from? They are wildly incorrect.
George Soros is only about $20B. Bridgewater is about $40B. JP Morgan Asset Management is $30B. Citadel is $10B. (Numbers are all from rough recollection, may have changed since I last heard them.)
$5B is royalty in NY just like it is in SV.
There's definitely a point here somewhere, though. New York City has a way of making you feel poor unless you're very, very wealthy. A few million doesn't cut it.
SF is very much the same, though to a somewhat lesser extent. Hasn't stopped it from being a tech hub though, so I'm not sure if that's the deciding factor.
It is interesting, though, to look at the tails of that distribution. That's where you find the massive wealth generation. And, instructively, at those outer limits, you'll find that the top of the top is populated by entrepreneurs as much as it is by finance guys. Bill Gates, Ellison, Zuck, etc. compare to the Warren Buffets, John Paulsons, and their compatriots.
Having said that - there is so much good stuff coming up in NYC too. Good signs.
So really it's a question of whether finance is drawing people away from entrepreneurship in general. Given that finance is the most reliable road to riches these days, I'd say certainly it is, but entrepreneurship offers far more in the way of creative rewards and the opportunity to "change the world".
NYC's competitiveness with the valley probably doesn't have much to do with how much money or respect is in finance. Rather it's about the quality of the ecosystem for entrepreneurship. NYC could easily become competitive with SV without Wall Street having to take any hit at all. If the absolute opportunity for entrepreneurship were better in NYC then it would be just as attractive to potential entrepreneurs, except for the few who want to be "big fish", but that type of attitude is not conducive to success as an entrepreneur anyway.
I will agree that people are generally more greedy here than anywhere else on the planet. And there is a certain segment of the city that only respects people with lots of money, certainly to a degree you won't encounter elsewhere. But that doesn't describe everyone in New York.
It is true that in some contexts people dress very formally here compared to other cities, but my experience is that the startups in New York have a dress code that is just as informal as startups elsewhere. If you saw anyone wearing a tie in an office, I can pretty much guarantee that it wasn't the office of a startup, even in New York.
How many people do startups to impress random other people? Is NYC different in this respect?
* From growing up just next to NYC and making my way into the city pretty often.
Fiber coverage is pretty good now. Many buildings still don't have it, but it's in most neighborhoods; my girlfriend has Fios and she's way out in Queens, but I don't have it down in the East Village 'cause it isn't run into my building yet. That said, fiber isn't the only game in town -- Roadrunner in NYC has DOCSIS 3, and $100 gets you a 50Mbit connection, which I absolutely adore.
i can only assume that these commenters haven't spent much quality time here (or in finance - which is, for the most part, not glamorous, but rather soul-sucking)...or they have spent some time here and have a very limited view of the city.
nyc is more than just wall street, "silicon alley" and midtown. i've worked in several places (boston, london, atlanta, san fran)...and i've never come across as rich a mixture of people who "make stuff" as i have in brooklyn.
on a related note: it'll be interesting if stanford ends up winning the bid to open a campus in NYC. (i think the navy yard location would be perfect!)
btw, great coffee (and serendipity-friendly) spots in brooklyn: gorilla, cafe grumpy, ...a new place called rucola (serves stumptown), and many many more.
listen, i love the valley. ...i just want people to know that my nyc is a creative and fun one. ...and you can live a happy/rich/fascinating existence here without touching a line of fintech code.
(btw, the other comments seem to focus more on the mythical finance vortex here, which i'd love to debunk someday...hence the sidetrack.)
as for being in the "same league," i guess i dunno know what that means, really - from the perspective of a person trying to get an idea off the ground. (and i write this having started/sold one myself, been an early member of a company that went public, been part of a flame-out...and been through plenty of ups and downs over my startup-oriented tech career).
both have great access to capital...great engineers...pently of startups (not a smattering) and plenty of spots for serendipitous meetings with interesting people (we got plenty 'o those). ...i think the rest is pointless d#ck measuring when it comes down to it. any location is really what u make of it anyway - as long as you're not in a bad one.
don't get me wrong, i'd love to just bump into ron conway or PG at my local coffee spot. perhaps they'd visit the good people of brooklyn someday...over a latte with a side of capacitors at the local hacker collective. ;-)
Obviously this is not true 100% across the board, but anyone who has experienced both cities will immediately grok what I'm talking about.
Sure, we need more of these around. I'm just happy there's a place like this that fits the bill right in my neighborhood. It's more of a cafe than a coffee shop, but that didn't stop the owner from putting dual power plugs in between every couple of seats at the bar. And getting a darn fast wifi connection.
That they make some of the best drip coffee in the area, and serve brunch 7 days a week, combined with affordable prices...
The owner has a coffee shop too, but it's too cramped to work in all day. He recognized that people were starting to try to do that there - and kept it in mind when he opened up this cafe. During a typical weekday, the bar is filled with people with laptops open.
Also there's usually a couple laptops out at Coyi Cafe up the streeet on Ave B.
Though I do agree that there's a shortage of good spots to hang out w/ a laptop for a few hours during the week daytime.
(not that this has any effect in my mind as to whether NY is better than SF for startups, but whatever)
And their food is a lot better than Table 12 ;)
This is easier to do in Williamsburg, Brooklyn than Palo Alto
edit: to prove the point, here's the free wifi list from yelp for wburg and greenpoint just to show how common it is
In NYC, if you can make a million dollars cool, but it's even better if you screw somebody out of a million at the same time. In Silicon Valley, if you make a million dollars cool, but it's even better if you help somebody else make a million at the same time.
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/NYC_Resistor
;-)
look at all those happy/helpful people, ready to volunteer their time and emotional shares to help you get your project off the ground. (and this is only one great hacker spot in the city.)
in my experience (~10 years in manhattan+brooklyn)...these are the kinds of people/groups that are here...looking to build stuff and have fun.
...but, of course, in a place as large as this, you'll find all types. (as you do in the valley too, really.)
Interesting point. Was at Coupa just this weekend. Couldn't get Wifi :)
Now, if you're looking for a place to work you might want to look into co-working instead. In NYC the shops just can't afford to have you sitting there taking up space all day for $10 worth of coffee.
Now, I could totally see Jersey getting Valleyish if it weren't for the stigma of Jersey.
I'm struggling to find a coffee shop in San Francisco that has unlimited wifi and stays open late, where late >= midnight. Suggestions?
It is hard to find seats before midnight, as it is full of students, but it is as nice as a starbucks get.
Since it is so popular, starbucks tried to open another 24hr location close by, but there was a lot of opposition from local coffee places, so they didn't get a permit.
But would you know that if you weren't already plugged into the tech scene? I don't recall seeing a sign outside of Foursquare's building. Etsy had a handmade sign taped to some windows you couldn't see from the street unless you knew to look for it. 111 8th Ave doesn't have a big Google sign out front. There's no big Vimeo or OkCupid, etc., etc., signs outside IAC's headquarters. I don't believe Tumblr has a sign out front. In fact, the only tech company sign I recall seeing on the side of a building in NYC was Squarespace before they moved (I don't know if their new place has a sign). Compare that to walking around Soma or driving down the 101.
Most people probably have no idea there are well-known tech companies based here.