New York is the heart of a new digital economy. | Hacker News Reader

New York is the heart of a new digital economy.

nyctecheconomy.com

51 pointsshakes29 comments

"The average NYC tech ecosystem hourly wage is $39.50 49% greater than the NYC median (AND 44% OF THOSE JOBS DO NOT REQUIRE A BACHELOR’S DEGREE.)" This seems like a terrible abuse of statistics. The average wage of $39.50 may be 49% greater than the NYC median, but what is the median tech ecosystem hourly wage. It is probably lower than the average. Of those jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree, how many are actually held by people without a bachelors degree, and what is the average (or better yet median) wage for those without a bachelors degree.

The average-median thing seems to be just a mistake by whoever wrote that summary. If you look at the full report, this is what they have:

"Workers in the New York City tech ecosystem earn 49% more than the average City-wide hourly wage. The hourly wage for the tech ecosystem is $39.50, while the average City-wide wage is $26.50."

Your other points are valid, of course.

Edit: this is the full report and is quite a bit more informative than the summary: http://www.hraadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NYC_Te...

Edit2: no longer completely sure what they are talking about:

"As of 2013, the average New York City median hourly wage was $26.50. Tech ecosystem jobs pay above the City-wide average. In fact, tech ecosystem workers are paid 49% more than the City-wide average of $26.50. In comparison to this average, tech workers in tech firms earn 75% more, tech workers in non-tech firms earn 51% more, and non-tech workers in tech firms earn 25% more."

I suspect their "average" "median" income is median income by job category averaged together. With that said, it looks like they arrived at the tech average wage in a similar fashion.

The tech sector has always been big in NYC, but it's not the same as a Silicon Valley. There's far fewer pure tech companies and a lot more tech services especially around our traditional big industries, finance and media. There's a handful of significant tech shops, but mostly it's consulting, IT and the like. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Yes, it definitely seems like the best play to make in NYC is to build a business catering to, or symbiotic to, one of the big existing NYC industries. This way you can leverage off the time/place advantages of being in NYC.

It really is awesome being in NYC. I have lived here my whole life, from when every neighborhood was dangerous to now when even harlem is hoarding hipsters.

I have no basis of comparison, but this city really kicks ass. The restaurants, the activities, the opportunities for work. If something is holding you or your startup back, that something is not NYC.

Cost of living, mostly just rent.

Why would I choose to live and start a business in NYC when places like Seattle, Portland, Austin, Chicago, and DC all have drastically lower costs of living?

But remember, you don't need a car -- think of it as your car, gas, insurance, repairs, etc. going to rent instead, and the difference isn't quite as large.

And then think about the tremendous amount of culture here -- plays, restaurants, music, groups of people, and so on, on a larger scale and with more diversity than anywhere else in the world except perhaps London. This might not all make a big difference for you, but it's the reason a lot of people choose to live in NYC.

If saving money is your top priority, stay out of NYC. Move to Springfield, Memphis, or Wichita Falls.

If you enjoy certain characteristics of urban living -- dense, progressive, diverse, bustling -- NYC is peerless.

> If you enjoy certain characteristics of urban living -- dense, progressive, diverse, bustling

Plenty of cities have these characteristics that have a much lower cost of living than NYC.

I love NYC. It's a great city, probably the greatest city on earth, but there are plenty of other options out there.

Those traits are no more boolean than cost.

Taxes in New York are a big problem, same as in CA. If you're moving from a jurisdiction with sane taxes you need a substantial pay hike just to break even, never mind the crazy rents.

Outside of the traditional finance areas, commercial internet access can sometimes be a bit spotty as well. Large swaths of Brooklyn just aren't wired up. Hell, even in midtown I had a buddy uproot and move offices because Time Warner couldn't keep the pipes bits flowing into their building, and they would experience outages for hours at a time.

How can you make this comment when you have no basis for comparison?

The industry will be in a better place when there no longer is any physical center to a 'digital economy.' When people don't feel the need to move to places they can't afford to 'make it' and instead can work where they are or where they want to be and still do what they want to the maximum their product or service allows.

^this. The $39.50/hr they quote (~80k salary) isn't much for NYC, especially with a family. I make more than that in my small town working remotely for a SF bay area company and I wouldn't move there without ~$125k minimum.

If you factor in the hit or miss quality of public schools and the cost of sending a child to private school, NYC starts to look incredibly expensive. Elementary school tuition can crack $30k, more than many Universities! [1]

[1] http://theschool.columbia.edu/admissions/tuition-financial-a...

You realize that there are a lot of "they" who don't want to spend all of there lives in NowhereVille in the state of NothingEverHappensHere ?

In fact there are many people who select their career exactly because it allows them to move to places like that?

Despite being condescending and smug you are actually agreeing with the person you replied to.

The lack of a physical center to an economy means its participants can live wherever they choose to live, whether that is New York City or, as you so condescendingly put it, "NowhereVille".

There are still many perfectly fine places in the world that people are forced to move away from in order to participate in the tech economy. Getting rid of these barriers will only increase people's freedom to live where they are happiest.

The existence of choice for people who don't want to live in a tech capital of SF and NYC doesn't at all diminish your experience of living in such a place. What's with the misplaced anger?

"can work where they are or where they want to be"

Maybe read the whole thing, if they wanted to move to NYC, that would fall under where they want to be. And that doesn't justify the current environment that you basically must move to these spots to do things, whether you want to or are paid enough to.

“Those who do not read are no better off than those who cannot.”

And there are also quite a lot of people who don't want to pay $2000 a month for a 300 sq.ft. pied-a-terre perched atop a multistory building with no elevator. They like that the nothing that never happens in nowhere central includes loud parties in the adjoining apartment that last until 2 am, people using the stairwells as latrines, trash collector strikes, property crimes, violent crimes, hipster-driven gentrification, people who don't clean up after their pets in public spaces, trust-fund-baby DUIs, routine traffic jams, public transit strikes, and mayoral antics that people will actually watch on television.

Diff'rent strokes, for diff'rent folks. If everybody liked living in the same places, no one could afford to live there.

I'm glad that New York appreciates one of its many business sectors, but I really don't want to live there. But some people do, and they shouldn't have to go to San Francisco or DC Metropolitan Area or New Nowheresville just to get a good job, either.

The saddest part of the New York tech economy are the dozens(if not hundreds) of ad "tech" companies selling retargeting disguised as some new proprietary technology.

I am about to be job hunting in the city. Can you name some names to save me a bit of trouble down the road? Who should I avoid?

The claim made in the headline is not supported by the text that follows, which doesn't provided data on tech employment in any other cities or metros. It'd be better to say "New York's tech scene is thriving" if that's what the data support.

Regardless the the somewhat deceptive title, this is still an impressive collection of stats. The full study does a great job of explaining how the tech economy is also good for the traditional economy and those without technical backgrounds as well. Some of the anti-tech set in SF could stand to learn from it.

Now let's get some of those jobs out onto long island.

Another New York is the best at X story. Every time another city does something good New York tries to copy it. They have to keep this kind of PR up to promote living in an ultra expensive area.

hardly new

The study was just release today, so it is about as new as it gets - if you're talking about the study results.

My guess? Upvoted to front by site's authors for traction.

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