San Francisco is back
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Sure. It's the granddaddy of tech hubs and far larger in terms of talent and capital than any of the others. I don't know that I would call these other cities tech hubs in the same way. I'd like to see charts of longevity. Formation and success are two very different things.
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When companies leave town, the people that don’t go with the new company band together and try a small startup. This happens all over the city… You get many more tiny companies and overall less actual employment and $$$, but you can say “We had an explosion of tech companies open in San Fran, baby! We are back!”
Now, one thing that is their saving grace is they do have several of the largest AI labs in the world with too much infrastructure and investment to move. With the exodus of so many tech workers, those labs have had to import a large number of new workers. Wanna guess where from?
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Austin is growing but still tiny compared to the SF bay area, which gets about half of all VC funds in the US. It is small compared to NY, Boston, and LA which are 2, 3, and 4. Having said that, how they justify putting Atlanta and Seattle on the list but not Austin I don’t know.
LD - SF area is number 1 in VC funding and has been for decades and remains so specifically in AI. Austin is far more a case of small-base-gooses-growth-percentage than the top cities on the list.
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Austin is growing but still tiny compared to the SF bay area, which gets about half of all VC funds in the US. It is small compared to NY, Boston, and LA which are 2, 3, and 4. Having said that, how they justify putting Atlanta and Seattle on the list but not Austin I don’t know.
LD - SF area is number 1 in VC funding and has been for decades and remains so specifically in AI. Austin is far more a case of small-base-gooses-growth-percentage than the top cities on the list.
@jon-nyc said in San Francisco is back:
Austin is growing but still tiny compared to the SF bay area, which gets about half of all VC funds in the US. It is small compared to NY, Boston, and LA which are 2, 3, and 4. Having said that, how they justify putting Atlanta and Seattle on the list but not Austin I don’t know.
LD - SF area is number 1 in VC funding and has been for decades and remains so specifically in AI. Austin is far more a case of small-base-gooses-growth-percentage than the top cities on the list.
I don’t think VC funding is the accurate measure for these things. The largest and most influential companies and employers aren’t taking VC at this point. They don’t need it.
Which is more powerful and transformative for a region? A large number of small tech companies getting funding from gamblers in SF, or Amazon Web Services investing $35B into Northern VA? Speaking of which, I would like to see their geographical boundaries. Are they are counting Silicon Valley as San Francisco, but not using Northern VA for DC? Since 2022, 15000 startups have formed in Northern VA, with $7B in VC. That is most definitely serious growth…
The Brad
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@jon-nyc said in San Francisco is back:
Austin is growing but still tiny compared to the SF bay area, which gets about half of all VC funds in the US. It is small compared to NY, Boston, and LA which are 2, 3, and 4. Having said that, how they justify putting Atlanta and Seattle on the list but not Austin I don’t know.
LD - SF area is number 1 in VC funding and has been for decades and remains so specifically in AI. Austin is far more a case of small-base-gooses-growth-percentage than the top cities on the list.
I don’t think VC funding is the accurate measure for these things. The largest and most influential companies and employers aren’t taking VC at this point. They don’t need it.
Which is more powerful and transformative for a region? A large number of small tech companies getting funding from gamblers in SF, or Amazon Web Services investing $35B into Northern VA? Speaking of which, I would like to see their geographical boundaries. Are they are counting Silicon Valley as San Francisco, but not using Northern VA for DC? Since 2022, 15000 startups have formed in Northern VA, with $7B in VC. That is most definitely serious growth…
@LuFins-Dad said in San Francisco is back:
I don’t think VC funding is the accurate measure for these things. The largest and most influential companies and employers aren’t taking VC at this point.
You want to argue Austin has more and/or larger "largest and most influential companies" than San Francisco?
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As for the metric this is about company formation for which VC money is a damn good proxy at least in the tech space.
@jon-nyc said in San Francisco is back:
As for the metric this is about company formation for which VC money is a damn good proxy at least in the tech space.
HP moves its HQ to Austin, dropping 2500 positions, and losing another 500 employees that don’t want to move. That’s 3K people. Of that 3K, 10 different groups form small startups of 100 people each. Those 10 new companies don’t represent growth for the area, it’s still a net loss but through the magic of marketing we say “look at all of the new businesses!, we’re booming!” New business formation sounds great, but when it’s accompanied or even caused by larger and established businesses migrating, then it’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Half of these startups will be shuttered in 18 months, with new startups coming from those ashes. That’s not growth.
Again, the real growth that is happening in San Francisco are the AI labs that have been there and established for over a decade that are logistically impossible to move. And those jobs have been going to primarily foreign born workers that these companies are specifically bringing in from overseas. That’s fine, but it’s not the image of opportunity that the San Francisco council is trying to promote…
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@jon-nyc said in San Francisco is back:
As for the metric this is about company formation for which VC money is a damn good proxy at least in the tech space.
HP moves its HQ to Austin, dropping 2500 positions, and losing another 500 employees that don’t want to move. That’s 3K people. Of that 3K, 10 different groups form small startups of 100 people each. Those 10 new companies don’t represent growth for the area, it’s still a net loss but through the magic of marketing we say “look at all of the new businesses!, we’re booming!” New business formation sounds great, but when it’s accompanied or even caused by larger and established businesses migrating, then it’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Half of these startups will be shuttered in 18 months, with new startups coming from those ashes. That’s not growth.
Again, the real growth that is happening in San Francisco are the AI labs that have been there and established for over a decade that are logistically impossible to move. And those jobs have been going to primarily foreign born workers that these companies are specifically bringing in from overseas. That’s fine, but it’s not the image of opportunity that the San Francisco council is trying to promote…
@LuFins-Dad said in San Francisco is back:
HP moves its HQ to Austin, ...
Long after it stopped being "influential," of course.
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The first and only time I was in Austin was when Apple Computer was my client in the early 90s. It was after Jobs had been fired and the Newton was launched. But they already had a sizeable presence there.
One thing that came of it (Apple’s presence, not my trip) was Apple crushed an initiative that was going to outlaw the provision of ‘partner’ benefits (ie spousal-type benefits for same sex couples back when gay marriage was illegal). It was about to pass and Apple told the governor and legislative leaders that it would shut down its Texas facilities if it became law. “And the rain came down”, as they say.
