[speedster217]

Have you lived in Silicon Valley? The amount that people from other companies talk to each other is incredible. You're using a technology? Oh just hop in the car and talk to the developers about your use case and help guide the development.

You _can_ do that remotely, but having it happen in person is way more reliable

[olcor]

That doesn’t mean that people in NYC don’t talk to each other as much.

Sure it might be easier to hop in the car and talk to developers in the valley. But I don’t just want to talk to developers (and even if I do, not necessarily developers of a tech company). Technology is primarily an enabler for the rest of the world, not just something significant in and of itself.

I can still talk to developers in NYC. But developers are not the only ingredient of a project, company or ecosystem. I can also talk to the best domain experts in finance (different types, not just VC), media, law, health, government, advertising, academia, architecture, etc. all at one place with more ease than in SF. This gives me, a developer, more perspective than I can glean elsewhere.

I agree with the GP that you’ll find a lot of pure tech in the valley. But the applications of that tech all have significant presence in New York in comparison to the valley.