I think this is actually a fundamental problem with not having downvotes. Tribalist things that would normally get half upvotes and half downvotes now just get upvotes. It's the same thing with the iphone/android stories. With downvotes, we'd be reading a lot fewer of them.
But downvotes just as often (or more often, I'd argue) create exactly the tribalism you describe. Restrict users to only a positive input mechanism and you'll drastically reduce bullying and other gang behavior.
I guess I don't see this being a problem "all the time" the way you do. Sure, every so often you start seeing lots of articles about the same contentious debate happening in a pretty tight echo chamber (or sometimes you start seeing nothing but Erlang articles at PG's behest), but save for the occasional dud most of what rises to the top around here seems pretty well worth my time.
> New York is the capital of food, fashion, music, finance, diplomacy, culture and news
It's also full of humble and modest people ;-)
I appreciate the fine rantiness of the post (and the one it's responding to, for that matter), but I have one serious criticism:
> The big things (tm) in tech right now are social, mobile, and local. These work best when you have a lot of people and a lot of stuff all mashed together. It’s not a coincidence that Foursquare is happening in New York and not Palo Alto.
The problem here is that you're building stuff that _only_ works in super-dense urban areas like New York. We need local and social and mobile stuff that works for the rest of the world too. If Foursquare's ambitions are limited to NY that's legitimate, but your argument is sort of specious: that Palo Alto is inferior because they aren't building applications that don't actually work well in places like Palo Alto (let alone all the still-less dense parts of the country).
Oh, and New York's food carts have nothing on Portland. So there!
You are saying that NYC is an incubator for things that only work in super-dense urban areas, and Palo Alto is a very different environment where density-driven things don't work?
I have an impression that most of the rest of the world (that has discretionary spending you might salivate over) lives in cities that resemble NYC density much more than they resemble Silicon Valley endless low-density sprawl. Let's find some numbers.
I compiled the following list of the world's 20 richest cities as of 2005 (1) and next to each I have listed its population density rank and people/sqkm.
Tokyo 50 4750,
New York 114 2050,
Los Angeles 90 2750,
Chicago 126 1500,
Paris 69 3550,
London 43 5100,
Osaka 38 6400,
Mexico City 27 8400,
Philadelphia 155 1100,
DC 250+,
Boston 176 900,
Dallas 148 1150,
Buenos Aires 46 4950,
Hong Kong ~36 (not listed in same data sheet as it is a "country") 6349,
San Francisco/Oakland 104 2350,
Atlanta 203 700,
Houston 149 1150,
Miami 121 1700,
Sao Paulo 25 9000,
Seoul 6 16700,
(edit: couldn't get these lines to break no matter what, so just comma-delimited them)
As of 2000, Mountain View had a density of 2264/sqkm, placing it actually HIGHER than New York. What? You would spend half your life on Caltrans in Mountain View with no car. In NYC you would spend half your life looking for a parking place. I don't get it.
It's a bad habit, but people (including me) often say "New York" when they mean "Manhattan". The population density of Manhattan is 70,951/sq mi (27,394.3/km2) according to Wikipedia.
That's a very fair point. The argument is not that Palo Alto should be making Foursquare. It's more that with all of our iThings and Droids, we're at a place where these local/mobile apps are starting to matter more and it seems the most obvious place for these to spring up is in large cities. This is not a reason New York is fundamentally better as much as it seems that New York might be better for the times.
I have no doubt that these types of apps will be used all over the country in towns big and small. It's just easier to get critical mass in the cities.
> It's just easier to get critical mass in the cities.
That's absolutely true. I have some personal experience trying to get critical mass around a local-social application, and I've seen a number of others, and it's very hard in most places. What isn't clear to me is how starting such a service in New York teaches you anything useful about achieving critical mass anywhere else.
I don't necessarily agree with all the points, but this was definitely an amusing post to read.
I think your feelings towards NYC are very similar with mine towards Toronto. Both cities are very similar, holding for the density ratio (NYC is at least x4 larger). I have complete faith in the Toronto startup community, though I don't imagine it'll reach the Silicon Valley scale anytime soon. Despite that, Silicon Valley's incredible density and concentration could be a disadvantage for some as much as New York's and Toronto's diversity could be an advantage.
I imagine the startup scene and tech industry will continue growing proportionally in hubs all over the world. Hopefully soon Silicon Valley wont be the only place where you can raise money on a crazy idea from useful investors with reasonable terms.
I also plan to resume my residence in Toronto someday.
Hirehive, and the guys starting it, is pretty cool but I'm not sure why this post was upvoted so high. It didn't really make (or attempt to make) a good rebuttal to most of the points in Antonio's post. It's not like Antonio was saying "NY sucks for everything". He was just saying it wasn't the ideal environment for tech start ups, which is true imo.
The only two things I partially disagreed with Antonio on were on food and cost of living. It's not impossible to find a cheap place to live with roommates in NY, and people in NY take food seriously. I knew a lot of people who cooked well; just as good as SF and the Bay Area or better.
Well his words were a bit stronger than New York isn't "the ideal environment for tech start ups" ;).
I think the real advantage that the valley has right now is mindshare. This won't change without some prodding. The argument has to be made strongly for New York if this is ever going to change.
I disagree. It's more than mindshare. New York does have a lot of good things going for it, but it has one main weakness tech-wise: pragmatism.
"That's a dumb idea"
"Why build Z when X already exists?"
"How does this make money now or ever?"
Yes NY is less likely to have major disasters like web van, but for the same reason it's also less likely to have a google. Only tech cultures that are as crazy or crazier than SV can hope to beat it.
People in NY may be very open to stuff like fashion, but imo they're very close minded when it comes to tech.
NYC Resistor is invite-only. I used to go to TechShop in Menlo Park, which had CNC mills, 2 laser cutters, rapid prototyper, multiple shop bots, welding, aluminum casting, a 3-D foam cutter, CNC vinyl cutter, industrial sewing machines. and so forth. AFAIK, there is no equivalent in NYC (I am already a 3rd ward member... does not come close).
Does anyone know of a place in NYC like TechShop? I've heard SVA has a fab lab, but it seems like you have to be an MFA student to get access.
It doesn't quite fit the bill of replacing TechShop, but you should check out Alpha One Labs (http://www.alphaonelabs.com/). It's a community hackerspace in Brooklyn that follows radical inclusivity – anyone is welcome to join, and as soon as they outgrow their current space they find a bigger one.
It's just getting off the ground, but there's a interesting group of people there. Drop in for one of the weekly meetings, tuesdays at 7.
And they just got a laser cutter (which they'll also let you use it just for asking!).
IIRC, Resistor has open hack nights every Tuesday or Thursday. If you hang out and make stuff, you won't get turned away. I totally agree though. I wish space wasn't at such a premium in New York. The whole community would do well with a more open Resistor.
If you are trying to do a life style start up, New York is probably a good place. (i don't have anything against life style business). But you're trying to do anything more ambitious, silicon vally is still the place to go.
Well said. The absurdity of saying "most New Yorkers couldn’t fry an egg if their lives depended on it" is what set me off. Also, the fact that I'm a living contradiction to nearly all of Antonio's points.
