Paul Graham’s “Cities and Ambition” argues that great cities attract ambitious people, but the type of ambition varies. New York City is money, Cambridge is knowledge, Silicon Valley is power. Not a bad thesis – I love New York City, but the ‘you should have more money’ message definitely lingers in the background. Which makes me wonder how Paul Graham could get the Silicon Valley message so painfully wrong. Whenever I hang out in Silicon Valley, I don’t hear ‘you should be more powerful’, I hear ‘you should be more famous’. If Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, Silicon Valley is Hollywood for geeky people. The endless conference circuit, the incessant parties, the constant name-dropping – all of it brought online thanks to various social networks, where Valley people always form the most avid userbase – it’s nearly impossible not to notice this. You can get your fame by being powerful, sure, but you can just as easily get it by being a gadfly or one of a dozen echo-chambers reprinting the same content and throwing the same industry events. Thanks, but I’ll stick to New York.
Speaking of New York, Paul’s statement that “someone starting a startup in New York would feel like a second class citizen” because “there’s already something else people in New York admire more” is completely bizarre to me – I’m starting a company, but I don’t feel like a second class citizen at all. How could I? For the first time in years, I’m doing exactly what I want to do most. But the statement does fit nicely with my fame thesis – only a completely fame-centric person would care if their line of work’s admired most by the people of the area they live in. A person like that fits perfectly in and should probably move to Silicon Valley, where they’ll find the admirers they crave. The rest of us can get their rewards from the work in itself.
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