Somewhat depressed to see that the newest marketing strategy for YC companies is to imitate techniques rappers pioneered 15 years ago.<p>What are these guys thinking?
> New York is the capital of food, fashion, music, finance, diplomacy, culture and news<p>It's also full of humble and modest people ;-)<p>I appreciate the fine rantiness of the post (and the one it's responding to, for that matter), but I have one serious criticism:<p>> 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.<p>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).<p>Oh, and New York's food carts have nothing on Portland. So there!
I don't necessarily agree with all the points, but this was definitely an amusing post to read.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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).<p>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.
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.
You can keep both NYC and Los Angeles. There's a much bigger world out there than just two geographic area.<p>If I were single, I would be a digital bedouin so I could work in both New York, LA and anywhere else on the planet.
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.
> Nick was living in 81 square feet in a 3 bedroom in a beautiful brownstone in Park Slope for under $800. Living out here is costing him more money.<p>Yes, but at least you get more than 81 square feet!