Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsherry | Hacker News Reader

New Yorkers who play any serious role in the tech startup scene - whether it be as company, investor or advisor - know what Quora is. Please don't let this shallow piece of reporting steer you into believing otherwise.

View on HN

I think the point that is (clumsily) trying to be made is that your average 'person on the street' in NYC isn't stuck in the tech bubble, and hence might give you more perspective. As a NYC founder, I certainly find this to be true. In Silicon Valley, you can live your entire life and rarely meet someone who doesn't work in tech. In NYC, you can't help but meet artists, writers, ad execs, people in finance, etc. These people are often your users, and interacting with them provides an invaluable perspective.

About to move to NYC (grew up in SV) and looking forward to experiencing this paradigm shift. I have grown to resent the hive mind around social networking and big data around my home town. The one thing I worry about is moving away from the hardware backbone that made SV great originally. I've been very happy to discover a lot of 3d printing and open hardware work going on in NYC at the very least, even if it's a little "softer" than some of the R&D out west.

Same with those here in Boulder. Not sure what the point of that comment was in the article -- trying to imply that Silicon Valley was in its own ivory tower, but that New Yorkers were somehow more "real"?

From what I've seen on here, people always try to talk up the city they are in. Often, part of talking up the underdog involves tearing down the reigning champion.

I suspect it's basically classic social proof seeking behavior, wherein individuals will try to get their friends to do what they are doing (this "validates" the individual's choices)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com