[jrockway]

Don't start your startup in New York or San Francisco. Rents here are twice what they are in more reasonable parts of the country, and you get absolutely nothing in exchange except maybe a slightly-less-shallow talent pool. (Oh, and cockroaches. Lots of cockroaches.) Your employees will be paid twice as well, and your offices will be twice as nice... for free... if you locate yourself outside the expensive parts of the country.

[dworin]

I have a small company in New York, and agree with all of your reasons why it's terrible.

The one advantage besides talent pool (which is a big advantage!) that both New York and San Francisco have, and that's often overlooked, is proximity to customers. If you're in a business where high touch sales are important, or where you need to be able to meet regularly with your customers, it's very difficult to do remotely.

I'm not sure if the cost-benefit really plays out in New York's favor. I often think that for what it costs to live here, it might be cheaper just to fly in twice a month from someplace else. But it's certainly an advantage I underestimated when I started out.

[jusben1369]

Great point and I think the answer is both. We're in Durham and it's fundamentally cheaper for us to be here and for me to fly to the Bay Area every 90 days for a week (admittedly I have family there still so accommodation is free) However, there are a lot of customers or prospective customers I never met because I have to formally schedule it around a trip. No random meet ups. No "Oh, you guys are just 4 blocks over? To heck with email let's get coffee and explain what we're doing"

[silverlake]

Couldn't you put sales in NYC, but everything else in NJ/CT? Lots of banks have finally wised up to that.

[jrockway]

BofA sort of did that when I was there; important projects at 42nd/6th, most everyone else, downtown at WFC. (They also had an "offshore" office in Chicago, where I worked. Loved that term.)

Downtown is not quite New Jersey, but Midtown certainly seems to be the hotness these days.

[pragone]

I just want to point out that there are large portions of New York that are not New York City

[tedunangst]

Pedantically, the name of the city is just New York. Given the context ("or San Francisco"), I think it's clear he didn't mean to include Buffalo. "New York or California" would have meant the entire state.

[richardfontana]

New York (city) native here. Usage of "New York City" for disambiguation by Americans, at least, became increasingly common beginning as far back as the late 19th century. But by the time I was a teenager (1980s) I would say that using "New York City" was ordinarily a reverse shibboleth for not being from New York, all the more so to write "NYC". (Where "New York City" tended to be used was governmental contexts, although "City of New York" is the more proper name of the municipality.)

At the same time, the older generation, such as my parents, used "New York" (or "the city") to mean approximately "Manhattan", a holdover from what the city was before the consolidation with what are now the remaining boroughs. That always seemed old-fashioned to me. I believe you can still see some old subway signs that use "New York" to mean "Manhattan". (Incidentally New York is also the name of the county that is almost but not quite coterminous with the borough of Manhattan.)

When I was growing up, the state was more or less never referred to as simply "New York" by people in the New York the city. It was "New York State", most of which was "Upstate New York" (though that couldn't refer to Long Island, and it was never quite clear where 'Upstate' began).

The reverse shibboleth quality of "New York City"/"NYC" is probably dying out, may be already dead. Nonetheless I find it annoying.

[avn2109]

For the jaded Manhattanite, upstate ≡ 5 blocks north of the home/office of the person who is speaking. Since I work on 120th, everything north of 125th is upstate.

[_delirium]

It's commonly used as shorthand, yes, but jrockway is commenting in response to a startup program that does include Buffalo, saying not to start your business in New York. I think pragone, responding in turn, was just pointing out that "don't start your business in New York [the city]" is not advice that's incompatible with taking advantage of the Start-Up NY program.

[thekevan]

Plenty of times I have mentioned being from Rochester, NY when in Florida or California. People there often assume it is a part of or suburb of NYC. Even after I have told them I am a 7 hour drive from the city and never even visited it until after I moved to Washington DC at 26.

Wikipedia even notes the differentiation is important.

"The city is referred to as New York City or the City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part"

[mbillie1]

Exactly. Having grown up in between Albany and Saratoga, I'd be excited to see some more tech culture evolve there. I'm not tremendously optimistic, but if Atlanta can do it, why not Albany? (Atlanta being a similarly car-travel-intensive, sprawling pseudo-urban region)

[joonix]

Nonsense. New York is not nearly as bad as SF for rent. I know someone who just rented a studio in the heart of lower Manhattan for $1500 and that includes heat and water. On top of that you don't need a car or Uber or any of that. Unlimited subway pass and/or a bike or CitiBike membership and you're set. That is absolutely manageable for a tech professional and well worth it for all the benefits of living here and access to opportunities. If you're doing a startup you're probably not that concerned with income taxes in the first few years. The one real downside is that office space is pretty expensive.

And I've lived here almost a year now and have never had a cockroach in my apartment, or even so much as a silverfish in the bath tub.

[gaadd33]

$1500? Sounds like they got lucky. Streeteasy shows only 3 apartments for rent for less than $1500 and one is an SRO. (http://streeteasy.com/nyc/for-rent/downtown/rental_type:frbo...)

I'm sure you can find a really tiny non legal space in Chinatown or similar but I'm not sure I would call that a bargain.

[goldenkey]

And chinatown is chock full of roaches and rats due to the restaurants dumping cooking oil and garbage into the streets. You get what you pay for.

[goldenkey]

$1500, does that include the cockroaches and bed bugs? Because you better believe it.

[jgalt212]

All of this may be true, or not true, but as far as geography is concerned, the #1 thing is to be near your customers. Do you know why Microsoft was first based in Albuquerque, NM of all places? Because that's where their biggest customer, MITS, was based.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft

[kloncks]

Depends on the kind of company you want to build.

The data proves that the kinds of companies that need a great engineering talent pool and venture capital will tend to hail just a couple of locations.

I'm not saying there aren't exceptions. There are. But in an endeavor where the failure risk is so high in the most optimal of circumstances, I wouldn't add another risk factor like location into the mix.

Just my thoughts.

[rjsamson]

This program is largely focused on economic development in New York State outside of NYC. In NYC the program actually carries additional restrictions, while in Upstate NY it is easier for Universities to apply to designate space, and for companies be approved.

Unlike NYC, in Upstate NY rent and required salaries are lower - it's a great place to start a company (though I may be a bit biased).

[cpfohl]

Forget rent. In Upstate New York buying is cheaper than renting. There's an idea for a starting bonus: we'll give you the downpayment on your house.

[tokenrove]

Not everyone wants to buy a house in a potentially illiquid market to work somewhere, unless they're already really committed, or lack foresight.

[scarmig]

Yes, everyone, please stay out of the Bay Area! Don't even consider locating here, it's a hellhole!

[jeffasinger]

This applies to all of New York State. Taxes aren't low, but cost of living is definitely very low. There's lots of Universities upstate too (both to colocate with, and to try to hire talented grads from).

[greg5green]

There's not just lots of universities upstate, but some really good universities (Cornell, Syracuse, RIT, Rochester, UB, Albany, RPI off the top of my head)

[untog]

...unless you're looking for investment cash.

[thekevan]

You mean New York City. There is a whole state outside of NYC that is great for start-ups.

[avn2109]

Jane Jacobs is rolling in her grave right now.

[im_a_lawyer]

NYC is much cheaper than SF and much more pleasant to live in than vast majority of cities in the US. You wouldn't convince me to live anywhere on the west. I would rather make 2x less money in NYC than live in some tract suburb with identical housing, identical shops and identical people. Been there, done that.

[avn2109]

But in your tract house, you can watch your giant TV and devote your life to consuming the maximum possible quantity of industrial products! How can you say no!?