If it's a mistake to start your startup anywhere but SV, given the choice, then why does YC do its summer program in Boston? This is not rhetoric, but a serious question.
Seed-stage startups are so mobile that it doesn't matter too much where YC itself takes place, so long as they get to demo to investors in the biggest markets.
Also, though SV has the most investors, Boston probably has the highest volume of hackers flowing out of its universities.
Robert is a professor at MIT and is not moving in the immediate future.
But I would want to have one foot in Cambridge even if it weren't for Robert. Cambridge is smarter than SV. The smart world and the startup world are adjacent, but not identical. We'd rather be half in the smart world and half in the startup world than just in the startup world all the time.
While this might not actually be the reasoning, an advantage may be that motion reinforces a mission. Despite working on a web startup I do not have any internet at home -- I use public WiFi. This forces me to use the internet to get stuff done. It keeps me from surfing endlessly -- the occupational disease of every hacker.
Likewise, perhaps it makes sense to use Cambridge for early stage hacking, and SV for finding investors and building a business.
Also, though SV has the most investors, Boston probably has the highest volume of hackers flowing out of its universities.
Robert is a professor at MIT and is not moving in the immediate future.
But I would want to have one foot in Cambridge even if it weren't for Robert. Cambridge is smarter than SV. The smart world and the startup world are adjacent, but not identical. We'd rather be half in the smart world and half in the startup world than just in the startup world all the time.