Here’s another story (Mercury News) about the differences between the venture and start-up communities on the East and West coasts.
Separately, note that the most ridiculous examples of self-absorbtion do not necessarily hail from Silicon Valley, as some might assume.
The start-up that filmed itself during the boom era of 2000, Govworks.com (the company of Kaleil Tuzman’s, pictured top, which became the documentary Startup.com) was based in New York City. And this year’s self-absorbed company, PayPerPost, is based in Florida (we wrote about PayPerPost here). It has launched Rockstartup to video-chronicle its journey. It has the obligatory episode of the founder Ted Murphy in the car, before and after meeting with venture capitalists (click on image above for video). Of course, Murphy comes back after the meeting, boasting he’s raised $3 million in three meetings, and is going to make his partner so rich. Both PayPerPost and Govworks raised money from Silicon Valley VCs (Govworks raised $60M, including from Mayfield, PayPerPost from DFJ), so valley VCs are partly responsible for this sort of excess too. What do you think? Will PayPerPost bomb, like Govworks did? Techcrunch also takes note.
Also, not sure what the Mercury News meant by the East Coast having an advantage in biotech. There’s evidence that the Bay Area is ahead of the Boston area in this field too.
12 Comments
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Startups.in/India said:
The correct link to the article on the differences is at Capital battle between the coasts.
Matt, lately, you’ve been pointing to incorrect URLs in quite a few posts. What’s going on? Stressed out? :)
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Nate said:
Really, VentureBeat? You’re now measuring “self-absorbtion [sic]” levels between the Coasts?
I think the overwhelming feeling has been that NYC start-ups are pretty humble and chill. People like it here specifically because it doesn’t have all the hype and tech-rock-star culture that the Valley has.
Party on East Coasters!
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Matt Marshall said:
Apologies, I’ve corrected the link. Stressed? Nah. Perhaps too self-absorbed. ;)
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Andrew said:
The BioTech comment might have been in reference to the DC area, with the FDA and other government agencies and all the Genome research being done along the I-270 corridor.
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Jimmy said:
I saw this article as well. Living on the east coast I am always curious as the reasons for the differences in cultures in this arena. I wrote a small piece on this news as well @
http://eastcoastblogging.com/blog/2006/12/11/why-does-so-much-tech-innovation-come-from-the-west-coast/ -
Jeff said:
Hey you can’t mention RockStartUp without giving my parody a plug. Click my name above to watch it!!! Drop me an e-mail with your comments.
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Mike Volpe said:
The debate should not be about east vs. west, but about Boston vs. Silicon Valley - these are the 2 most important start-up zones in the world. INcluding NYC and LA and Florida in the debate muddies the issue. As a veteran tech starup guy who has worked in both San Francisco and Boston, I can confidently say that the Sillicon Valley startups brag too much and worry too much about their image and not enough about revenue and profit. This produces some huge wins, but also a ton of magnificent failures. While the Sillicon Valley game is fun to watch, I much prefer the understated, modest, puritan spirit of New England which instills in our startups a need and desire to focus on business results rather than flair and self-promotion.
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David said:
Puritan spirit? It’s call puritan snobbery…Boston’s issue is that the VC and management community has been stuck in the 90’s allowing most tech innovation pass them by while looking down their noses at “web 2.0″ technology until something (like YouTube) makes some waves in the pool.
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Danny said:
Let me see where to start. True facts are that the wealthiest cities are on the Weastcoast. Examples are San Jose, San Francisco, New Port Beach,,etc.
Higher amount of College degrees are in San Francisco and Seattle area. Both were ranked as smart cities by CNNMoney.com
Biotech and technology center(Sillicon Valley)are found in the Bay Area.Companies like google, Sun, Dell, HP,Oracle, Apple,etc.
Boston doesn’t have the best VC’s, talent and schools.Stanford University and berkeley are in the Bay Area.
I can actually say this are facts you can find on CNNMoney.com or in google. -
Houwsq said:
nice site
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Nbkvqbu said:
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mariah lopez said:
yo WEST COAST 4 EVA I PREFER THE WEST COAST COZ THEY REAL OL DA WAY!!!!!!!!!! LUV 2 WEST COAST!!!!!!!
2 Trackbacks
4:18 am
East vs West « Technically Speaking said:
[...] There is a nice startup “who is better” talk going on today. Personally speaking, I like the west coast over the east coast. Yes, Rex Dixon has spent time and lived on both coasts, and the west coast is where it is at. Better statement is I prefer the more friendly atmosphere of things out west. I’m currently as many of you readers know, stuck smack dab in the middle of the country. . [...]
7:19 am
93South - Thoughts on New England Web2.0 » Is Boston the PC and San Fran the Mac? said:
[...] I’ve been reading a few threads lately about the difference between the East and West Coast technology markets and I wanted to respond with some witty breakdown of the cultural differences between the two markets. I wanted to stand-up for the small start-ups who have had difficulty getting the attention of the technology establishment here on the East Coast until after a few high profile success stories made them take notice. However, as I was outlining the salient points of my argument and attempting to find an image to hang my post on it hit me…Is Boston the PC and San Fran the Mac? [...]