Archives for June 2014

I finally watched one of the documentaries that has been on my Netflix queue for a while– Inequality For All. I had heard good things about it, and it lived up to the hype.

The main narrator of the documentary is Robert Reich, former U.S. Labor Secretary. The documentary tries to answer two questions about inequality:

• Has economic inequality increased over time in the US?
• Does economic inequality even matter?

Here were some of the most interesting things I learned from the documentary:

Income Inequality as Measured by the Percentage of National Income held by the Top 1% of Earners Peaked Twice in the Past Century–The Crash of 2007 and the Great Recession

Reich highlights this fascinating plot, where you see the peaks occurring in 1928 and 2007.

He also draws some parallels between the Great Recession and 2007:

• Both were followed by economic crashes
• Both were also followed by social unrest–anger against financiers after the Great Recession, and the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2007

The Middle Class, not Top Earners, Drives Economic Growth

Fox News and the Republican Party like to justify low taxes on the rich and lax business regulations by using the “trickle down” argument–namely, that the rich are job creators who [Read more…]

Recently I took an extended trip to San Francisco. I had visited SF before, but this was the first time I spent the majority of my time socializing within SoMa, a startup and tech mecca. Here are my impressions of SF compared to my residence in the Boston/Cambridge area.

Boston’s Startup Scene Doesn’t Compare with SF’s

There’s been tons of arguments written about Boston vs SF (see Paul Graham’s Xconomy interview about this topic). In my heart I’ve always wanted to believe that Boston’s startup scene was just as strong as silicon valley’s, only not as large or as spread out.

Alas, it isn’t.

Graham probably says it best: “[Boston] has more startup culture than anywhere else [outside of Silicon Valley], but the gap between number 1 and number 2 is huge.”

In SoMa, any cafe or restaurant you go to buzzes startup energy. People have ideas and aren’t afraid to try them. Going unemployed (i.e., “working on your startup”) for a year or more is accepted in Silicon Valley. Maybe even expected.

In Boston, going unemployed typically means you’re a student. And if you’re not a student then people wonder what you’re doing. This is obviously an exaggeration*, but you get the picture.

The stronger startup scene in SF breeds two other core entrepreneurial advantages over Boston.

SF Tends to Be Ahead-of-the-Curve in Tech

I heard about mobile apps in SF that haven’t yet appeared in Boston. But they probably will. And some will be very big.

Being in SF and chatting with people involved with the startup scene feels like being at a hollywood party, where you get the inside screening of upcoming films. There’s just a lot more money being tossed at ideas, and in turn more “hey, let’s try this” apps show up. And with more new apps, entrepreneurs have an advantage in SF because they spot more trends ahead of mass adoption. They set themselves up to succeed if those new companies explode.

Because more money seems to be thrown at young entrepreneurs in [Read more…]