The Ongoing Battle: NY vs. SF Tech Scene | Hacker News Reader

The Ongoing Battle: NY vs. SF Tech Scene

techendo.co

28 pointsyounata70 comments

Is there a "battle"? I mean, a battle to me means there is a likely winner, and people are pushed into making decisions and taking sides. In 15+ years working at tech companies, I've never had to "pick" - I choose to live in SF - thats it.

Further, I've literally never, ever, heard a person who is actually running or employed at a startup consider it a battle.

But it does seem like a good headline for getting lots of clicks...

I heard it referred to as a "debate". When I got there, people were asking me left and right about what I thought was different, so it seems like the comparison is already being made.

I hate to say anything good about SF, but frankly only people in the NYC tech scene think they're in competition with SF. I doubt people in SF think much about the tech scene in NYC.

I work at a large tech co. in NYC, and we don't really talk about being in competition with SF at all. Besides, many of the really big SF-based cos. have offices here anyway.

Google spent a few billion dollars to buy an office building: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/nyregion/03building.html?_... (they later expanded it for even more).

eBay's 6th Ave office costs $2-3 million per month (what's a million dollars between friends?).

(This isn't really relevant though. I just like reminding people huge sums of money are in play. Your little "$50k to $200k angel round" isn't as big a deal as you think.)

Damn, what if the 200k angel round leads to a billion or two dollars? I feel like your last line is totally irrelevant.

Meta irrelevancy.

I was just at the Google office in NYC last week. They have a great space!

only bloomberg thinks about competition with SF.

Too bad it's going to be destroyed now that DeBlasio was elected. He has no idea what to do with the tech sector. Bloomberg spent millions to basically stump for the tech scene in NY. DeBlasio plans on doing no such thing, he has no clue and no plan. When all the other candidates visited numerous startups during the campaign, DeBlasio showed almost no interest.

"[NYC] is home to fashion, art, film, literature, theater, banking, and more."

Maybe its just closer to Europe?

More seriously, agree with the article. SF's strength is also its weakness: a huge concentration of bright like-minded people focused on similar objectives.

Interesting that you fail to mention the other side of SF, the people who have lived here from before we started coming in. The New York Times had an article on them today [1].

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/25/us/backlash-by-the-bay-tec...

I wish the tech scene on Long Island, NY was a tenth of what it is in NYC. It's amazing how the culture dies within a few miles of NYC. Is this the same on the west coast?

You can picture west coast internet tech as a heat map. SF has a big solid color blob. About 20 miles south, Palo Alto is smaller and half as dark. About 10 miles south, Mountain View is a little larger and darker than Palo Alto.

There are little blobs of heat map down by San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo. There's a little dollop of color up at Portland. There's a half-SF color sized blob in Seattle for Amazon. There's a small, but solid color around Bellevue and a faint twinkle over at Redmond for the fading empire.

Discounting the sleeping giant works great, until they eat your lunch.

Microsoft has an enormous capacity to innovate, mostly thru brute force of the billions of dollars they have sitting around, but still, innovation is innovation.

Not to tear you to shreds, but Microsoft sure did great at popularizing tablet computing, next generation phone supercomputers, hardware industrial design, stores with the highest grossing margins per square foot in existence, and raising their market cap 50x to 100x since 2001.

Microsoft is in nearly every enterprise anywhere, partially due to inertia, but also do to the fact that no one else offers a complete solution - Office is ubiquitous because it was better than all of its competitors, and largely still is. Outlook/Exchange from a objective point of view is horrible - but there is no other complete solution that matches its features.

In every one of their traditional markets they have blasted every incumbent away and largely kept any new competitors from entering in any meaningful way, That said, from about 2001 - when entering new markets they've been like a rudderless ship sailing around in circles. However, there is a changing of the guard coming shortly, one that I think could change the direction of the company in ways that could cause sea change in any new market is chooses to enter. Once Microsoft can figure out how to work with itself again - god help any part of the technology sector they choose to target.

Office is ubiquitous because it was better than all of its competitors, and largely still is.

...which was entirely a result of their abusing monopoly power.

god help any part of the technology sector they choose to target.

With the march onward past Windows 95, they set in motion a plan that kept progress in personal computing from advancing for about 15 years.

Now, I don't believe they sat down and actually said "We are going to halt progress for 15 years." They just sat and grinded on their install base without any reason or motivation to innovate.

Let's not let that happen again.

Microsoft is in no way a good thing for the world. The only saving grace at this point is they are full of silly old people who can't think in a world where everybody has an iPhone in their pocket and an iPad at home.

This was very helpful. I plan on visiting SF sometime very soon. I want to be sure to hit Palo Alto, and Mountain View while I'm there!

Unless you are visiting companies or Stanford, it may not be terribly exciting ;-)

It's exciting to walk around Stanford slack jawed, staring at the giant stone architecture, landscaping, never-ending expanse of learning, research, and sleaze-trepreneur while constantly exclaiming internally, "How much money do these fuckers have?! Haven't they heard of normal sized buildings? Every lecture hall here is a goddamn castle!"

I visited a few weeks ago. It reminded me of Perth (where I currently live). The actual urban area is quite small and all the rest is spread out and connected by freeways. Palo Alto, Mountain View etc -- all 45 minutes to an hour's drive from SF in non-rush-hour conditions.

Edit: when you can, take the 280. It's a little less direct but it's a lot prettier.

This does depend how you define the tech scene. SF only really figures if you're thinking web. Once you're into traditional software businesses or hardware the Valley proper is far more significant.

If NYC stays strong expect Long Island to grow with it. Office space is dramatically lower on the island and projects like "Nassau Works" look to centralize the tech hiring, making it easier to transition to more living space for less money.

I don't know about NYC much but SF has culture. The suburbia is exactly what it is: suburbia. I remember living in Mountain View for three months, they have one fucking street which is "downtown". I got stir crazy after a while.

Just move to brooklyn, that's what I did... best of both worlds.

David Karp agrees with you

“you’d have to be out of your mind to live in Palo Alto.”

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/david-karp-is-...

As someone who lived in Palo Alto, yep. But if you're well-off and looking to start a family, Palo Alto is perfect.

How are salaries/living expenses in tech different in SF and NYC? Assuming you are living in SF or NYC, of course. Are they higher in NYC or lower or vice versa?

I would say both are lower in NYC. Salary is definitely lower, and rent is as well because the infinitely better public transit in NYC gives you more living options that have a short commute.

I am surprised that the rent is lower if you are living in NYC proper. I have one sample point for a friend who lives I think in the East Village. He pays $2300 for a studio. That seems about SF standard. (Well, not in the nicer parts of SF anyway.)

What exactly do you think the boundaries of NYC proper are? The East Village is one of the most expensive neighborhoods, not a typical one.

So I don't know enough about NYC to define what a expensive neighborhood is. However, $2300 is about mid range SF neighborhoods. Not highly desirable ones like the better of the mission, Pac Heights etc but something on the intersection of less desirable (deep inner sunset) and actually livable.

NYC incorporated its inner suburbs around 1900. So it is physically much much larger than San Fransico. It also means that there is a great variety of neigborhoods of all economic types -- from extremely wealthy (Upper East Side) to quite poor (Melrose section of the Bronx) -- inside city limits.

All of which is to say that limiting your statement to "NYC proper" doesn't mean much because that covers a lot of ground. If you had made your orginal statement about "Manhattan south of 96th street", it would have meant what I think you were going for. Within in those parameters the East Village is middle of the pack.

Also in reference to your comment above the subways run 24/7 in NYC (albeit on a reduced schedule).

Ah, gotcha. Apologies for using that phrase then. I merely meant living in NYC vs say living in New Jersey and making the commute (I knew a lot of people who did that.).

There are plenty of places in Brooklyn where you can live (with 3 or 4 roommates) for less than $1k/month.

I'm making comparable salary in NYC, and rent is pretty much in line with San Francisco area standards: $2300/mo studios in desirable areas... the difference in the housing market are these. First, there are more medium-awesome areas to choose from close to town (head to Astoria or East Williamsburg and you might shave $500-1000 off that studio, but you can still catch the N train to get to work and the neighborhood's reasonably cool). And second, if you want the apartment, there's a good chance you can get the apartment (whereas last time I went apartment-shopping in San Francisco, there would be 20+ people in line for the open house, including many couples who were new-hires at technology companies. it was insane.)

> First, there are more medium-awesome areas to choose from close to town (head to Astoria or East Williamsburg and you might shave $500-1000 off that studio, but you can still catch the N train to get to work and the neighborhood's reasonably cool).

Would this be like living across the bay in Oakland or something? The flipside of such a situation would be that you get back home from SF at midnight before the last BART or you would have to be stuck when BART decides to strike.

They're both just across the river from Manhattan, so it would be a relatively short trip. I believe the trains run all night.

This would be like living across the bay in Oakland, but much better. Compared to NYC's subway as a general-purpose transport system, BART's more like a commuter rail line that happens to be underground in downtown San Francisco.

Heck, when the MTA decides to strike (which is occasionally, but less frequently than BART) you can walk to Manhattan from Astoria. Try that from Oakland-to-SOMA.

> there are more medium-awesome areas to choose from close to town (head to Astoria or East Williamsburg and you might shave $500-1000 off that studio, but you can still catch the N train to get to work and the neighborhood's reasonably cool).

That's exactly what I'm talking about.

it depends what is meant by "tech."

They tend to have the same pay (amongst the big companies that have offices in both areas, anyway) but NYC is more expensive, especially Manhattan.

Agree with last comment -- Salary is roughly equivalent, but cost of living in NYC is much higher. While you can rent for cheap in NY due to transit, you can do that in SF too (see: Dogpatch). Cost of food, entertainment, etc. is way higher in NY. (Reference: I lived in NY for 5 yrs, and SF for about 6 months now)

The Dogpatch is cheap? When was this? Last I checked you're likely looking at $2500+/mo for a 1BR. Maybe if you keep heading down towards Bayview, Portola, and Sunnydale (never mind the deterioration of the neighborhood) you can get closer to "rent for cheap". I think I'd actually favor the Sunset, but you'll have to head out a ways because inner-Sunset and Cole Valley are heating up.

Who cares? you know what's in NYC that trumps that consideration? The opposite sex in balanced ratios. Finding your life partner far outweighs salary or living expenses any day of the week.

Ehh...I think that can go both ways. I know folks who live a pretty isolated existence in NYC and others who have an active dating life in SF. The problem is that if you get stuck in a tech bubble of friends, you are going to find yourself short changed when it comes to meeting women.

(Of course, this all applies to meeting women through friends. I don't do the bar scene so can't really comment on it.)

I dated a few (attractive/high status) women in NYC whom I met at meetups about things like rationality and graph theory, the last of whom is now my wife. You really have to actively seclude yourself to have a quiet dating life in NYC (as a straight guy).

> Ehh...I think that can go both ways.

But the numbers clearly suggest that NYC is the way to go. The ratio of men in their 20s to women in their 20s is one of the highest of large US cities in SF and one of the lowest in NYC. If you're a guy, NYC is the place to be.

Meanwhile Silicon Beach soldiers on and the weather is looking mighty fine this time of year . . .

honestly the 9+ months of summer we've had is starting to get a little tiring. i want to start wear my hoodie again.

I am assuming I am missing the sarcasm or you don't live in San Francisco. We have barely a month of continuous sunshine and most of it is not during summer time. It is fog, fog and more fog.

Edit: nvm, I didn't know what Silicon Beach stands for. LA obviously has way better climes than SF.

"Silicon Beach" is in LA

Santa Monica to be exact. It's really quite a nice place I must admit, despite being a SV lifer.

It's pretty okay, but I'm moving from Santa Monica to the Mission tomorrow... And I actually prefer Brooklyn to both.

That said, I think there's good stuff going on in all three places, and all three have their problems.

What's the tech scene out there like? It's 30 degrees here in NY :(

Lots of media/content space companies from what I've gathered in the few months living here.

Agreed. Santa Monica is is a solid spot for media startups or a handful of mobile apps. Some good work being done in the recommendation / metasearch space, and a handful of crowdfunding startups. Safe to assume everyone funding you has ties to Hollywood, since that's the majority of the VC money down there.

And that's a perfect way to differentiate themselves from SF/SV, much like how many of the most prominent fashion startups have been born from NYC. :)

Well I took a phone call this morning on the beach while drinking some excellent Groundworks coffee . . . it was almost too hot in a t-shirt and jeans. Weather is niiiiiiice in Santa Monica.

The tech scene is healthy and not frothy. Google Venice is a large presence, as is Factual (my employer), Hulu, Snapchat with their sweet Venice boardwalk office, and assorted others (http://siliconbeachla.com/). I like it here because being in a tech startup is very different and cool, unlike in SF/SV where it seems a ridiculous number of people are doing identical work.

I moved to San Francisco last year and settled in a nice apartment on Dolores Park; I was hired at Factual to work remotely but came to the L.A. office for the first month to train up. After a week I told them I wanted to stay, and I love SF. It is just . . . really nice here.

Which "Silicon Beach" are you referring to? Miami? Santa Monica? Or the original, Santa Barbara (dating back to the mid '90s)?

> First, there was far less elitism. This was surprising to me given that the East Coast is home to finance giants and "old money".

Immediately reminded of "Money talks, wealth whispers."

I really like the idea behind the takeaways and can imagine some truth to these observations... but it's hard for me to know how true it really is based on the OP's one week trip. Maybe the OP was lucky and just walked into a welcoming and diverse co-working space.

Hi Mike, I'm the writer. I totally agree-- one week is not enough time to make sweeping generalizations. Though I did spend a ton of time talking to everyone I met in tech about what they thought of the "scene" and our differences-- people from Stack Exchange, Skillshare, and a few other startups I admire. I just found the atmosphere so incredibly different from the get-go.

Also, yes, I was lucky to be in a great co-working space (New Work City). I'm sure they're not ALL like that. Just as in SF, there are "bright spots" and "meh spots".

Not to shock or surprise anyone here, but there's a lot of the tech scene outside BOTH NY and SF. Where's the largest private software company? Cary, NC [1]. Microsoft and Amazon? Based in Seattle. IBM? The non-NYC parts of NY (White Plains and Armonk, NY). And what's happening in different regions like Chicago? Lots going on. DC and Baltimore? Tons of activity -- including a $2.7B acquisition [2] and an IPO or two [3]. Raleigh? Philadelphia? Las Vegas? Indianapolis? Kansas City? Miami? Atlanta? Austin? Estonia? Berlin? ...

And let's not forget Boston / New England ... which is STILL #2 in total Venture Capital investment. [4]

See where I'm heading? This idea of an ongoing battle between two locations as being the core of the IT / Startup ecosystem belies the fact that a considerable amount of activity is happening outside these two regions.

I love NY and I love SF. And I think good entrepreneurs should do their best to network in both of those scenes. And YES there's a ton of VC in SF / Silicon Valley and a huge amount of activity in NY. But entrepreneurs outside of NY and SF can do just fine too. Ask Tony Hsieh from Zappos (Las Vegas) or Jeff Bezos (Seattle). I say, let these two cities battle it on while everyone else focuses on making their company and their local entrepreneurial scenes better.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute_Inc.

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-23/cisco-agrees-to-buy...

[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/03/29/millennial...

[4] https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/nav.jsp?page=region

When all you have is a slightly upgraded monkey brain, everything looks like a status play.

Edit: Apparently humour needs to come with captions now.

This is a play on the "hammer/nail" truism, observing that folk love to frame things as X vs Y zero-sum games. Possibly because of the human fondness for associating the status value of markers (places, brands) with the status value of our own selves. Thus arguments over NYC vs SF or iOS vs Android or Facebook vs Google or Node.js vs Go are not really about X vs Y at all. They are about establishing status in a troupe of great apes.

Indeed, this edited text is about status.

Ha, I thought it was kind of funny and I wrote the darn thing.

For the record, I did hear someone refer to it as "the ongoing New York/SF debate". This isn't something I just invented. I had personally never thought there was any comparison to be made until I heard that people out there make it all the time.

I only knew it was "a thing" from HN, actually. I recently took a holiday to visit both NYC and the Bay Area and I liked both of them a lot.

It is TriBeCa. Triangle Beneath Canal.

edit : Below not beneath (as the below comment points out )

Below. Beneath Canal is the subway.

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