In Why Facebook went west, Scott Kirsner suggests that Facebook‘s decision to relocate to Silicon Valley “either highlights Boston’s deficiencies as a greenhouse for a new generation of Web start-ups, or illustrates the incredible magnetism of Silicon Valley – or a bit of both.”
Short answer: It’s the magnetism of Silicon Valley, period.
True, if Battery Ventures or some other Boston-area VC had become the primary investor in Facebook, perhaps Facebook would have stayed. But good VCs everywhere pass up good opportunities every day. To ascribe those decisions to regional “deficiencies” is a stretch that verges on a smear.
What if Battery had invested in Facebook and the company had moved anyway? Would this say anything bad about Boston? No. It would confirm what’s good about Silicon Valley. If you’re a fast-growing tech company looking for the maximum quantity of high-quality local talent, there isn’t much choice. Silicon Valley is the place.
Back in 1984 I was a principal in a high-tech advertising agency in Raleigh, North Carolina. We had what was clearly the top high-tech agency in the state at that time. But one client said “Y’know boys, there’s more action on one street in Sunnyvale than there is in all of North Carolina”. We went and looked. He was right. We opened an office in Palo Alto, did very well there and within a year closed the North Carolina office.
That decision had nothing to do with the obvious advantages of our North Carolina location. But the business advantages to the Silicon Valley move were beyond clear. I suspect they were for Facebook too.
And that’s not to say Boston doesn’t have advantages of its own. Or else I wouldn’t have just moved here from California.
-
Have to agree. I’m in the DC area which is consistently called ‘a tech hotbed’ but like other ‘Silicon Valley-lights’ it is a tech community of one sort or another. We have a bio area, and a telcom area, and a defense tech area, but not the overall tech industry where you can find a guy to do this this and this.
I just tried to hire a PHP/MYSQL guy. Dime a dozen, right? No, absolute PITA! I was having to cut corners from my spec left and right to make ends meet. If I wanted a guy who knew heat seeking missile technology with a TS clearance–I had dozens, but something ‘simple’ was a bear.
My only knock on the Valley, beside housing prices, was the sort of ‘staleness’ of the cities. They seemed like every other suburb in America. I know you have to live there to find a good local Chinese place and a favorite bar and a good movie theater, but it did lack for that sort of ‘character’ that other cities like Boston has in spades.
-
One other thing that has always fascinated me about the desire of other towns to be tech hotbeds is the simple comparison. We’re the #x best city after Silicon Valley. I always wonder:
What is the third best city in the US to work in politics?
What is the fourth best city in the US to work in country music?
What is the second best city in the US to work in agricultural financing?
What is the fifth best city in the US to work in investment banking?You really need to go to the #1 if you want to get a start in any of those fields.
-
Define Silicon Valley in a slightly broader fashion and you can find the qualities that Andrew correctly is missing in Palo Alto and surrounds. Berkeley has lower (although still high) housing prices, an unimaginably high number of great places to eat at every budget, a highly diverse population, and great bookstores.
I haven’t checked, but I suspect as well that there are more PHP/MYSQL guys than you could shake a stick at.
What more could you want?
-
‘Walking’ to the everyday things you need in life is so underrated. I grew up in a tiny town where everything was within a mile from the center of town. Go farther than a mile and you were in the corn. It was great as a kid because you could walk or bike anywhere.
My wife and I have lived in NYC (56th and Broadway, which is around where Doc lived I think), London, and then in Hong Kong. Neither were totally walking cities, but within walking distance was nearly everything I needed, from breakfast, to groceries, to bookstores and parks. They had options (subways and the such) that allowed us to walk & ride to many other things as well.
As I look at mixed used development (residential, shopping, etc in a close in environment) that is starting to occur on the East Coast near things like subway stations, I wonder if the Caltrain stations will soon spur on small little oasis of walkable living up and down Silicon Valley.
Comments are now closed.
14 comments