[ben7799]

The article strikes me as somewhat OK but overly critical of the MIT startup and overly forgiving of the Stanford startup.

Also prior to the mid 1990s it seems like the Stanford startup thing really hadn't begun yet. You look at the old guard of SV companies and they operated much more like east coast culture. To me it seems like the modern "Stanford startup" culture arose from VC money from the investors who made tons of money in the first .com boom.

As someone who has spent my entire career in the Boston area (but have worked for SFBA HQed companies too) my perception has been that the MIT influence and the general cultural difference has some of the following elements:

- East coast is much more conservative in business approach

- Fake it till you make it is far less common here

- For a long time it was unheard of for a Boston area company to try and go public or seek an exit without showing a sustainable, profitable business model

- Companies here are basically never founded on breaking the law and hoping you become too big to fail and the law has to be changed

- Way less focus on consumer tech here

- Way less adtech influence (but that has grown)

- Way less tech businesses based on trying to ruin traditional jobs and way less focus on trying to convert people to gig jobs.

Some of the sports betting tech is here which is a black eye on the area IMO.

There is some stuff in the Theranos vein that just seems like it would be very hard for it to have happened on the east coast.

But over time now the east coast is being influenced by the Stanford culture and things are getting a little less conservative and a little more likely to be get-rich-quick and/or shady.

[alephnerd]

I went to school out East and work out west, and consumer tech is way more of a NYC thing than a Bay Area thing because the personas and professional networks are out there.

West Coast is also enterprise or business tech driven, but those founders aren't as media friendly or sexy despite being the majority (hence the Musks and increasingly Altmans hogging the limelight).

Boston has potential, but it honestly isn't leveraging it. The elitism is rife to a level unlike in California. A NU, BU, or UMass Amherst founder isn't going to be in the same circles as the Harvard and MIT founders who can leverage the I-Lab or Engine and HBS+Sloan resources, but in the Bay Area, a UCB, UCSC, SJSU, and Stanford kid will all be in the same professional circles. CIC tried, but they are trash. At one point, most startups in Greater Boston were basically Israeli companies using it as a US HQ because of the El Al direct and the large Israeli diaspora (throw a rock and you'll hit a Cafe Landwer).

Everything is tied up to elitism and old structure institutions out East (where did you study) while out West it's much more output driven (where do you work).

Works well for it's biotech innovation space though, which Boston is known for.

(ironically, I liked DC except the humidity - way less stick up their butt, but they also have a bohemian streak)

[neilv]

> The elitism is rife to a level unlike in California.

Awhile ago, to students at MIT, I mentioned suspiciously "MIT shop" companies, and said that, if you don't think there's people at Northeastern who could hold their own, then recalibrate worldview.

There's absolutely a lot of elitism around certain NE schools known around the world, agreed. Those schools actively promote it, and it's evident in some post-graduation things, including companies.

But I also see variations on that elitism around Stanford, Google, and some other Bay Area icons.

One difference between the elitism I notice most commonly around MIT, and around Bay Area, is that MIT's version is often about having survived a trial by fire, and being uniquely stronger due to that (not that I fully agree). Bay Area versions more often come across as less-secure reaching for and clinging to symbols of status, and nurturing artificial frat-like exclusivity. (Clinging to Leetcode hazing rituals is just one example.)

Of course, on an individual person level, you'll find a lot of smart and thoughtful people who don't subscribe to the elitism -- maybe the majority of people who could claim the same exclusive club as the elitists. And some of the smartest people are the most humble in thought and manner. But elitism does seep into a lot of things.

I suppose that club elitism might also be involved in some of the more arrogant actions you see affecting large swaths of society, separate from money/power motivations. The Bay Area sure does have a lot of that arrogance, sometimes labeling it "disrupt". (But maybe most often "disrupt" is more about grabbing money/power, than a genuine but arrogant belief that one can and should make decisions for society. Maybe all that matters to some is that they can, and anything else, like "changing the world [for better/worse, who cares]" is rationalization that's been blessed as virtuous.)

[alephnerd]

> But I also see variations on that elitism around Stanford, Google, and some other Bay Area icons.

Absolutely! And no place is without it's elitism. It's just annoying that Boston's is based on a specific identity that cannot be absolved (where you went to school for elementary, high, then college) versus something that adults have some autonomy to define (Cambridge and Somerville was much more refreshing, but the same issues persisted underneath).

That said, everyone should cut people to size whenever any form of elitism arises. It's all bullshit, we make good money - what's the point about clinging to a specific identity.

[3dworldrunner]

Having gone to university in Boston at a few different institutions, this is completely true. It's in the water. I think a lot of people never get out of the mindset, either.

[gottorf]

> throw a rock and you'll hit a Cafe Landwer

Are those new to the area? I don't live there anymore, but I spent a decade in Greater Boston and have never heard of this.

[alephnerd]

They aren't that common (only 3 I think), but they're a very Israeli brand and the only other North American city with a similar number is Toronto (not even New York).

New York is fairly Jewish but not really Israeli, but in Boston the Jewish community is very Israeli.

[tpetr]

honest question, what's wrong with the CIC?

[alephnerd]

It's been sometime since I was there, but it felt like it tried to be a South Park Commons style salon, but promising founders in the Software and Hardware space had plenty of better options like Engine or I-Labs, or moving out West to join YC or SPC.

I've noticed UAV/Autonomous/SpaceTech (UAE and Saudi are on a buying streak rn) and Biotech (unsurprising) startups do fairly well in the Boston scene.

[neltnerb]

I would say that MIT has jumped on the entrepreneurship train (for better and worse) much more wholeheartedly in the decade since this account of an even older (!) anecdote.

That's not to say that the startups aren't doing hard tech and they're still different than west coast startups. However, scientists are perfectly fine at using the scientific method for business development once you explain it to them and are much smarter about getting initial revenue and market validation and know perfectly well it's important -- if you mentor them even a little bit.

MIT started working much harder to explain this in the mid '00s when it truly was much more like what this story says.

[alephnerd]

> I would say that MIT has jumped on the entrepreneurship train (for better and worse) much more wholeheartedly in the decade since this account of an even older (!) anecdote.

Also, a lot more west coasters (like me and my peers) started coming out to Cambridge for school this past 10-15 years after Stanford, USC, UCLA CS/Anderson, and Berkeley EECS/Haas became increasingly difficult to get admission into.

I have plenty of Harvard and MIT friends who were rejected by those 4 programs despite being Californians.

> if you mentor them even a little bit.

MIT started working much harder to explain this in the mid '00s when it truly was much more like what this story says.

Yep! Programs like Engine helped, and I-Labs across town at Harvard as well, and YC ofc had its origins in Cambridge.