It could be Biggie versus Tupac. As New York’s technology startup ecosystem grows larger, it is becoming increasingly confident compared with its western sibling, Silicon Valley.
Yet Big Apple founders are taking pride not just in rivalling but in pitching a quite different kind of online upstart, four told a Monaco Media Forum panel event on Wednesday.
Like the east-west rap feud of the 1990s, their alternative approach exposes a cultural schism that enriches the ecosystem as a whole.
Tumblr founder David Karp said:
Speaking on the same panel, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti agreed:
The reality is becoming clear to these folks that a different and more diverse, alternative startup to Silicon Valley’s all-engineering lifestyle is what differentiates east from west.
It draws not just from mathematics but from publishing, music, film, design and more. And it’s not just culture, Katie Beauchamp, founder of fashion-content-commerce cross-over Birchbox, told the Monaco Media Forum panel: “Companies in New York are being founded with business models at the outset.”
All of which is all very well. New York is developing just fine with this relatively touchy-feely bent. But Tumblr’s Karp said New York can compete effectively, even for straight-up Valley engineering talent:
Thrillist founder Ben Lerer told the same panel: “From a recruiting standpoint – people want to live in New York City.”
That is also rubbing off on investors who, traditionally, had eyes only for California, Karp said:
This buzz is being amplified with Cornell’s Chelsea Technion facility, but was already fully in bloom despite such initiatives. These programmes concentrate interests, but a city so rich and relatively diverse can provide welcome distractions from the Valley’s tech bubble, Tumblr’s Karp told Monaco Media Forum:
Karp said 50 percent of Tumblr staff were relocators. Of around 60 engineers, a dozen were candidates to join the Valley’s Facebook, Google and Twitter during recruitment. “We’re able to show them a similar opportunity in a better city,” he said.
BuzzFeed’s Peretti suggested that the east coast’s particular flavor of tech boom is now happening because non-technology folk are harnessing increasingly accessible technologies atop their specialist fields to enact niche disruptions:
New York may be shooting for a different goal than Palo Alto but, within its own game, hasn’t yet achieved equivalent success, Thrillist’s Lerer noted: