Could Atlanta Buy A Silicon Valley?

Yeah, I'm Indian. Yeah I'm American too (born and raised in Kentucky).

Is there prejudice in the world? Yeah, sure.

Have I experienced prejudice/racism? Of course - and not just in Georgia or Kentucky but all over the world.

Does it matter one bit (at least to me)? Nope.

Anyone that shows prejudice (based on race or otherwise) is someone I don't need to be friends with, do business with, or interact with. I've never felt like a customer wouldn't buy because of some racial prejudice or an investor wouldn't invest because of the same. If they did, would I even want to do business with someone so small minded? No, I wouldn't.

Starting a company is hard. It doesn't matter if you don't have one hurdle or another - there are a lot of obstacles to a successful liquidity event. Entrepreneurship isn't a path where success is guaranteed. If it were, everyone would do it.

So my point is this - sure, prejudice may exist and you may think it will hinder you from succeeding. So what? No one said this was going to be easy. On the contrary, the large potential rewards upon success all but determine that it will be very, very difficult to achieve (go read an economics book if you don't get the reasoning as to why).

So just get to work, start your company, and be successful. This stuff is all noise and if it derails you - you need to become a better entrepreneur/leader rather than complain that someone kept you from succeeding.

1. Quality of life in Atlanta is good enough that smart people could be convinced to move here. Its warm, there are good restaurants, there is good shopping, there are funky neighborhoods and bars, its a short drive down to nice beaches where the water is actually warm enough to swim in. Hell, I've been snowboarding 4 weekends so far this season within a few hours of town. It does not have a national reputation for being ultra-hip, but as I said in the other thread, I don't think that matters. In fact, around the turn of the century (am I allowed to say that yet) neighborhoods in SF that were hip and trendy and neighborhoods in SF that were dripping in startup money were mutually exclusive, and being anyway associated with the tech industry was just about the most uncool thing you could possible be there even though everybody was.

2. There are some people who wouldn't move to Atlanta, for reasons that are both reasonable and unreasonable. However, the same thing can be said about San Francisco. Some people will not move there because they don't like the culture or they are worried that they are going to die in an Earthquake. Atlanta does have an undercurrent of racism and that does bare repeating. But its not a death knell for the city as a center for innovation. We have a very diverse community here who can work together and produce great companies.

3. Atlanta has a vibrant, multifaceted nerd scene with various strong universities, technical user groups, cons, parties, mailing lists, web sites, facebook groups, etc. In fact I find it far easier to get networked in with other nerds here than in San Francisco, where scenes tend to be a bit more snobbish, exclusive, and corrupted by the presence of wealth. There are some things I wish were going on here that aren't, such as a genuine hacker space, but in general the "scene" here is strong and growing stronger at a regular pace.

4. In addition to the aforementioned nerd scene, I think the things that matter are the right legal framework for innovation (which I explained in the other thread, and I do not agree that the differences are trivial particularly with regard to intellectual property laws), and a supportive environment of investors and incubators. The later seems to be improving, but unfortunately the stock market crash has made everything more difficult.

5. I strongly agree with jhaynie that Atlanta has got to look at its individual technical strengths. There are certain technical communities that are particularly strong here. Innovation is not about copying San Francisco - its about leading, on the world stage, in terms of the direction we need to take technology. For example, this is a time when every business in world is asking itself how it can reduce its costs. Our concentration of industrial engineers may have new answers to that question that you aren't going to get out of Palo Alto.

I grew up in Atlanta but have lived in Chicago, Washington state, Florida and Tokyo, Japan. I now live in Mountain View, California in the heart of the valley.

Atlanta is a great place to live, raise a family and has its own unique tech/geek/startup culture. It's hard to compare the valley to Atlanta - but that's true with any other location on the planet. Silicon Valley is unique and difficult to replicate.

These types of "centers" happen because of aggregation of people and resources. Nashville has an aggregation that supports country music, Atlanta has hip-hop, LA has Hollywood, D.C. has politics and NYC still is the financial capital of the world. Silicon Valley is just the technology capital of the world. With any rule, you have exceptions - plenty of great technology companies come out of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and Denver (just to name a few).

What Atlanta and all other places should focus on isn't how to replicate the valley - but instead, how to create their own unique place which highlights and rewards their own achievements and strengths. It will take a lot of constituents to make that happen - entrepreneurs, investors, law makers and educators.

One stark contrast that might be worth exploring is the difference between the Valley and other locations is reinvestment through the social contract. In the Valley, there is a very strong sense of a social contract from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs (and investors to entrepreneurs). I feel a much stronger sense of success which breeds more success (or help, resources, guidance and mentorship). In fact, anecdotally, it seems like way more entrepreneurs "who make it big" in the valley, attempt to repeat - either directly in their own subsequent startups or minimally through very active advising and investment in younger upstarts. I would contrast that to Atlanta where I believe that's more of the exception than the norm. (Plenty of people have such as John Imlay, Mitch Free, Alan Graber, Tom Noonon, just to name a few). My own personal assessment is that it might be because there are (a) fewer very large exits in Atlanta, (b) it's easier to retire with less money in Atlanta and (c) there's no peer pressure to do it again.

Recently, however, I'm very encouraged by all of the entrepreneurs that have decided to take things into their own hands. Atlanta knows who they are (Lance Weatherby, Scott Burkett, Sanjay Parekh and all the guys at Shotput Ventures like David Cummings and Mitch Free). I've long said it's the entrepreneurs that will "save Atlanta" -- if there is such as thing that people believe is necessary.

I'm very much rooting for Atlanta. Not to become yet-another-failed-silicon-valley replication attempt. Wow, gives a f* about that. I'm rooting for Atlanta to become it's own identity: something more powerful, more creative, more sustainable and more unique. Something that people say: "you can only do that in Atlanta".

But since someone opened the door and let the big elephant in the room, I am going to go ahead and admit that it's standing there. The sub-culture of technology startups is dominated by white males. Minorities are not represented at the same proportion of their general population percentages anywhere in the country. I am not saying its right and we should all work to correct the issue. But it is. Look at the YC companies. Look at the TechCunch50. Look at Demo. Saying that it's just Atlanta is unfounded stereotyping.

It would be much more beneficial to discuss Atlanta and other cities on the criteria that PG laid out. In my article I pointed out that Atlanta could be more tolerant. The city is not alone.

Costs of living are likely far lower than Silicon Valley, so you could become "ramen profitable" sooner. I'm paying $550 a month in rent for a gated townhouse with a 2-car garage right outside the perimeter.

You could get plenty of hackers from Georgia Tech who unlike grads from a private school won't have too much debt in student loans. Go Jackets and What's the good Word?

Atlanta could certainly improve on its public transportation, but if you live in Midtown you can walk most places. If you are in Tech Square, you can use Georgia Tech's trolly and bus system.

Culturally it's hit or miss. At a coffee shop, most of which close too early for a late night caffeine fix, you are more likely to overhear conversations about the latest trend in hip-hop or fashion, but I have seen a few Linux running Eee PCs in the wild.

Without going into all the other factors, Atlanta does have the necessary condition -- a concentration of smart people.

The Olympics were a good thing for the downtown area, and there is some government willpower to make it more appealing to entrpreneurs -- notably in biotech. With the CDC, Emory, and Georgia Tech, things could certainly be worse for startups, but I still wouldn't pick Atlanta as a likely new startup hub. The same government support that keeps the city afloat also feels a bit stifling. Poverty in the city center and sprawl everywhere else is depressing. And the general perception of Georgia in the existing startup hubs is even worse than the area actually is; offering a group of hackers $1 million to move to the deep South sounds like a mind game or a social experiment, not a serious offer.

Compare: When the last tech bubble burst it seemed like a lot of engineers left the Bay Area and resettled around San Diego. La Jolla has UCSD, a pool of biotech serial entrpreneurs and angels, even better weather than Palo Alto, and decent burritos and pho. Public transportation could be better, and it is getting better. So, it would take some extreme persuasion to keep me from heading right back to the west coast when I finish grad school.

"1) Do you have good weather?"

Atlanta does not have good weather. It is either really cold or really hot. It is nothing like the Bay Area's year round temperate weather.

During the fall and winter, Atlanta is typically gloomy and overcast almost every day. It's cold enough to ice too... I still remember feeling stupid for not wearing ear muffs or a hood walking across Tech's campus; it felt like my ears were going to fall off. Gloves are good idea too unless you want your hands goin dead.

During the spring and summer, it is very sunny but it is also really hot. Though not as bad as Florida, there are days where you can just walk for a 1/2 hour outside and be drenched in sweat. Air conditioning is a must, and your electric bill will reflect that.

For example (from Wikipedia), Atlanta is 2% Asian. San Francisco is 33% Asian. In fact 36% of San Franciscans were born outside the US.

edit: I do not mean to say that southern == racist. Far from it. I don't know how to measure racism. But for something like attracting immigrants to a city, perception of racism can be even more important than reality. And I am sure there is at least a common perception that Georgia is unfriendly to Asian immigrants.