You either go to New York or you go to Silicon Valey"
So goes the quote by Peter Thiel at a speech at Roosevelt University in Chicago recently. This has lead to a flurry of opinion pieces in the Chicago and national press both for and against his statement.
For:
Against:
Given that this is the season for many high stats kids to decide which part of the country to spend the next four years, is Thiel right?
Of course not. It’s just garden variety arrogance that makes people believe that others can’t have good ideas because they do things differently - in this case because they choose something other that one of two of the most expensive cities in the country as their home.
My husband is an engineer and had lunch recently with a young attorney, because she works on construction cases. She has her professional engineer’s license along with a law degree from Harvard. He told me all of her other credentials, too, but I can’t recall them. Anyway, this young woman could work ANYWHERE she wanted, and she has decided to practice law in Maine. She lives in our small town north of Portland, where she and her husband raise chickens. I guess her idea of “dreaming big” doesn’t mean surviving in a big city. There’s more to life than salary and prestige.
Denver has become a mecca for young techies who don’t want to live either in NYC or in Silicon Valley. They all live in downtown (looks like the city passed a law that no one over 40 can live there) and pack the ski slopes on weekdays because they work flex schedules.
But shhh, don’t tell New Yorkers of Californians. Don’t want to burst their self-important bubble 
The idea of living in NYC or Silicon Valley gives me high. Nope nope nope
(But I’m probably not talented enough anyway… and that’s fine by me.)
@Zinhead The Forbes quote made me laugh. Witty and on point.
What a crock. This idea says there is only one, very narrow definition of “success” and that it involves working long hours for high pay in certain industries.
I live in a small town - it is not uncommon for several generations to stay in this town (although I am not a native). People have decent jobs, live near extended family, enjoy local parks, coach their kids in sports, go into the major metropolitan area for cultural things (although we have nice restaurants and arts here too). I think it’s a great quality of life. You don’t have to be CEO of something to have a “successful” life.
Raleigh, Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte (just to name a few in the South, which isn’t even geographically submissive enough to be flyover country). And Boston, Seattle, Portland, Denver, and dozens more cities have densities of innovative smart people. And there of millions of smart folks that prefer small towns, for a different but not inferior way of life.
My son is happily employed post-grad at a start up in a large and growing metropolis not on either coast. He and his new wife did not want to be in the Bay area (and certainly NY was never a consideration). He had a lucrative offer in Boston, but they are very happy to be where they are-way more affordable than either Silicon Valley or NY.
Funny. Why did Thiel stoop to Chicago to deliver these remarks? To start a brain drain? There are innovative pockets all over the country. And even outside of those pockets, things are happening. Sounds like the old “flyover country” snobbism updated for the new century.
@snarlatron - He was in town giving a speech on “The American Dream—Globalization, Technology and Progress"
I live in Nowheresville. Really. Population 20,000, and two hours from any real city, and it’s not some hip little artsy place, either. I can think offhand of graduates from Brown, MIT, Columbia, Duke, Julliard, Oberlin here. Some just love to bicycle, hike, fix up an old house, tend a garden, whoop it up at trivia night, enjoy their kids and would not trade that for 60-hour work weeks.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to be in an environment where most of the other people are NOT dreaming big? You would have less competition.
[Full disclosure: My kids are out of college and working. One lives in Silicon Valley. The other lives in a suburb of a substantial city in flyover country. The cost of living difference is staggering.]
There are tons and tons of talented people and they live everywhere.
The best places to attend college and the best places to work can be very different. It also depends greatly on the field you are in.
Seattle is better than Silicon Valley for tech in the minds of many- note the current trends. Plenty of tech thinking going on there. And rising costs of living that go with being popular.
So, someone I never heard of (nor do I care) gives a speech at some school. It looks like the school made a poor choice in speakers.
There are talented people in all sorts of places. Ambition level is not the indicator of talent. Do not equate ambition with dreaming big. Intellectual ideas feed off others- being with peers is helpful. It is not a competition for everyone.
The quote was clearly meant to use hyperbole for a point, and not meant to be absolute. Of course there are different categories for success, and of course you can be part of a business that is somewhere else. It would be ridiculous to state otherwise.
For those that need the literal meaning of the point made, I believe it to be: “NYC and SV have the largest number of opportunities for talented and ambitious people who aspire to the most traditional definition of success.”
But if he had said that no one would pay attention.
Same ol’ discussion. When your kid is the only good player on the baseball or basketball team, how does he get better? By going to a better team or finding better people to practice with.
Of course this article will incite defensive comments, but it doesn’t mean some of it isn’t true. There are smart people everywhere, yadda yadda yadda. But if someone thinks the folks in restaurants in downtown Palo Alto are the same as the ones in restaurants in small towns across America, then they haven’t been to both. Just different. There are smart people everywhere, some choose to use it in ambitious ways, others don’t, personal choice. Good actors congregate in NYC & LA. Tech people congregate in places that include Silicon Valley, NYC, Boulder, Austin, NC, and the PNW, Silicon Beach, etc. To say one city is better is of course relative to who is saying it. Way before this article, there has always been people that will only live on EC or WC cause they believe that is where progress happens. And frankly, a lot does happen with all those ambitious people there. Thanks goodness for them, they will keep our economy out of the crapper. It doesn’t mean the rest of the country is sitting around waiting for them, however.
Most people will be that smaller fish in the big/huge pond- only a few in any pond can be the top. Quality of life is so much more important.
Scotlandcalling’s post seems accurate to me. Talent can be found everywhere, and so can high-powered ambition, but I do think the concentration of movers and shakers is greatest in and around those cities. I haven’t been to Chicago in many years, but that city used to be pretty intense and yuppy.
Thiel’s well-established as a total schmuck. That said: If you’re very talented and in tech and you love rabid competition and you want to compete for the things held out as major prizes in your field and you’re not an academic, then yes, he’s right. If on the other hand you’re very talented and don’t care about the things held out as major prizes in your field or are an academic, then no.
If you live away from centers of rabid competition, though, it will likely hurt your career, because in some measure you’ll fall asleep. You just won’t be forced the way you otherwise would, and you won’t be reminded of the pace to keep. The people who’d ordinarily bring the most energetic and interesting conversation will not be there. I’m not especially interested in competing or the big prizes, but if I had it to do over, and I wasn’t going to be a single mom, I wouldn’t have spent my adult life in flyover country.
wis75, if you’re extremely talented, then using the talent fully is part of quality of life.