I gave in. I caved.
Brady, Jen and I were chatting at a recent dinner in SF, and the SF vs NYC conversation came up as it so often does in my life - and, well - after a few drinks my resolve was weakened. Finally after four years of various ad-hoc conversations among friends from both coasts, I will indeed do an "alley vs valley" bit at next week's IgniteNYC.
If I am lucky and get this right - I will equally tick off friends on both coasts. And that is where you come in.
I am way too earnest to hit all the right notes so - so please leave ahead on over to the brand spanking new new "Alley vs Valley" wiki and have at it! please leave your snarks/comparisons in the comment section below!!! [till i fix the wiki]
I only have 5 minutes - so this will be pretty visual stuff!
Can't wait to hear what you have to say!!
[Note: Nod to Fred for inviting you to join in on the fun!]
Addition - in googling I find this CLASSIC article from 1999 read it and weep..heh
Why does it have to be "Versus?" Can't we all just get along?
Just tell them shut up about content and that they aren't the only ones who know how to program Ruby on Rails. :-)
And in NYC we lose more money on mortgage-backed securities in a week than they raise in all the C rounds of a year.
Posted by: howardgr | September 11, 2008 at 06:07 PM
Seriously, the strengths of the Alley are that we have exposure to top content creators in publishing, music, financial markets, and TV/Radio. We get our programmers out of Wall St trading firms, so many of them are biased towards real-time and high reliability.
NYC is concentrated, and yet even with all the events, it is sometimes tough for developers, entrepreneurs and resources to get connected.
In NYC it is *very* tough to find firms that are willing to take equity in new ventures in exchange for services - much more likely to happen in the valley.
Also in the Valley, it seems somehow easier to assemble a team and start a company, though I don't think there's any barrier in NY - just cultural. More thoughts as I have them.
Posted by: howardgr | September 11, 2008 at 06:14 PM
Thanks Howard - keep em coming!
Posted by: deb schultz | September 12, 2008 at 12:33 PM
So some very, very gross generalizations:
Silicon Alley (SA): Aggressive
Silicon Valley (SV): Passive aggressive
SA: primacy of the market; economic determinism
SV: primacy of the "concept"; technical determinism
SA: pedigree
SV: what have you done lately
SA: cab
SV: car
I'll leave the discussions about sexual mores and favored drugs to others ;-)
Posted by: Jeff Ubois | September 12, 2008 at 01:59 PM
And what about all the other great cultures and locations that get nerdy on this planet? What's next - Amsterdam v Portland?
Posted by: s | September 12, 2008 at 05:34 PM
Try as I might, I have yet to master the ability to summon my snark on command. Especially when I have so little experience w/ the Silicon Alley crowd. I like Jeff's aggressive/passive aggressive, I can definitely attest to the passive aggressiveness out here. There's gotta be a Brooklyn/Mission joke in there somewhere too.
Good luck!
Posted by: jonathan | September 13, 2008 at 06:50 PM
I missed your talk at the kickoff - will you post it to your blog?
Posted by: Valerie | September 15, 2008 at 09:53 PM