Silicon Valley vs. New York: Talent

As part of a series about the advan­tages New York has over Sil­i­con Val­ley and why it may become dom­i­nant, let’s take a look at how they han­dle talent.

There has been a lot of writ­ing about the tal­ent short­age in the Val­ley now that large com­pa­nies like Google and Face­book have gone into a tal­ent arm race, prompt­ing some to think that this could be the begin­ning of a new bub­ble.

New York­ers used to tal­ent wars

Bub­ble or not, the New York tech scene has been used to tech­ni­cal tal­ent being poached. Because there are other dom­i­nant forces in the city, New York star­tups have often fought the tal­ent wars at a mon­e­tary dis­ad­van­tage. Wall Street can attract some of the most tal­ented math­e­mat­i­cal minds with inter­est­ing prob­lems and extremely high salaries. The media and adver­tis­ing world has been appeal­ing to cre­ative types and peo­ple who enjoy being close to the spotlight.

The New York tech scene was born of those peo­ple who felt that there was more to life than work­ing for a large com­pany, mak­ing gobs of money, or hang­ing out with famous peo­ple. Peo­ple in the New York tech scene tend to be peo­ple that view the tech field as attrac­tive for its own sake, a place where one can build an inter­est­ing busi­ness. So tal­ent wars have always been part of the make-up, just another busi­ness prob­lem to solve.

By com­par­i­son, the val­ley had it easy as it was seen as the place to go if you are a techie, always replin­ish­ing its engine with fresh new tal­ent and the sup­ply always was roughly equiv­a­lent to the demand for new tal­ent, leav­ing the sys­tem mostly prop­erly balanced.

Now that larger actors like Google and Face­book have gone into hyper-hiring, demand in the val­ley has been exceed­ing sup­ply, reach­ing a level that is prob­a­bly no dif­fer­ent than the one peo­ple in the tech field in New York are used to. But for peo­ple in the val­ley, this is a new dynamic to adapt to; for peo­ple in the city, it’s busi­ness as usual.

There is also a vir­tu­ous cir­cle to the rise of New York turn­ing it into an ever more attrac­tive place for mem­bers of the tech field. As Fred Wil­son recently pointed out:

If you are a 22 year old man or woman just start­ing out in life, would you rather live in sub­ur­bia and work on a cam­pus or would you rather live in Williams­burg and work in Flatiron?

So the more suc­cess­ful the city becomes as a tech cen­ter, the more attrac­tive it becomes to peo­ple who want to help it become more suc­cess­ful as a tech cen­ter. The qual­ity of life ele­ment is going to be an impor­tant chal­lenge the val­ley will have to change if they want to sur­vive the New York onslaught.

New York, how­ever, will have to con­tinue, as Fred points out, its effort to fos­ter local tal­ent straight in col­lege. While it is OK to import tal­ent from the schools along the rest of the north­ern cor­ri­dor, other cities could try to stop that migra­tion. It is up to New York’s aca­d­e­mic cir­cles to start devel­op­ing the next ver­sion of Stan­ford locally if they want the cur­rent growth to be sustainable.

Take­away: Every­one poaches techies — the New York tech scene was born of those peo­ple that can’t be poached and found ways to attract like-minds.

Update: This post is part of a series of why New York may gain the top posi­tion in the tech world, dis­plac­ing Sil­i­con Val­ley. The whole series is now online: Intro, Cul­ture Part 1, Cul­ture Part 2, Tal­ent, Adver­sity, Busi­ness