Boston vs. NY Venture Capital

I’ll be moving to NYC in a month, and potentially refocusing this blog on NYC. Because I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about NY, I want to begin discussing it in the upcoming weeks.

There’s been a Boston/ NYC rivalry as long as I remember.  Having grown up in NJ and living in Boston for the last six years, I’ve felt a good amount of it, though nothing was better than watching the Giants beat the Pats…

Everyone knows that Menlo Park is at the top of U.S. VC, but Boston isn’t too far behind.  Interestingly enough, NYC takes much more of the online credit for this.  Why is this?

I think the answer is definitely cultural.  The NYC tech world is filled with Julia Allison, trendy Soho Meetups (that I’m hoping to be a part of when I finally move next month), and the media.  Boston, on the other hand, is comprised of brilliant, but nerdy MITers, medical devices, and the boring VC town of Waltham.  As developed as the industry is here, it definitely lacks the community that exists in Menlo Park and NYC.  I’m very excited to hopefully join that community in NYC, even though I am a consultant and don’t spend much of my professional time working with startups.

Government Absurdity

I normally don’t talk about politics (I was a poli sci major in college, so I’ve learned to avoid the topic), but this really gets me.

The 2010 census is going to cost  $14B+.  Yes,  that was a “B”  for billion.  I know the dollar is weak, but that is absurd.

Let’s think about this. Did some quick math – $14B/ $300M residents = $46.66 (6 repeating, ofcourse) per person for the census. We pay that much to have every person counted.

Even more math: $14B/$117 (number of taxpayers in U.S.)= $119, which is the average price every taxpayer pays for the census. I could understand if this was to get us to Mars, introduce renewable energy, or even buy tanks, but to count people?!?

This makes the Big Dig look like a minor budget deficit.

I hope a lot of people lose their tenured jobs for this.  Can you imagine any private company being so inefficient?  I bet you can create a startup who can complete the census for under $100 million.  This is the worst example of inefficient government.

Source: AP via Engadget

Nerd Heaven

I love it when pop culture looks at nerds favorably, like in this Mariah Carey video for “Touch My Body.”

“If there’s a camera in here, then I best not catch this flick on youtube…”

Mariah’s 38 years old, but is looking pretty good after loosing her marbles for a few years.

Hello World

So this is it. My first blog, and my first blog entry. Right now, with the amount of readers, it’s like talking to myself.

I think it will be useful to write a number of entries before I invite people to see this though, so that it at least looks like I have some content.