为什么你必须身在硅谷Why You Need to be in Silicon Valley
多年以来我都不相信这一点。我曾以为你可以利用波士顿、西雅图、纽约、奥斯汀这些地方的好处——更便宜的人才、没有回音室效应、本地大学，等等。但我放弃了。我发现自己在告诉一位创业者，如果他想成功，就必须待在硅谷。我大部分的论点都是关于消费互联网业务的……
我不想赘述那些显而易见的原因——投资人在这里，最优秀的工程师和创业者会自我选择来到这里，还有斯坦福和伯克利，诸如此类。
下面要说的是一些你可能没考虑过的点：
– 尤其是在消费互联网领域，现代企业正在变成赢家通吃（这要归功于杠杆和网络效应）。因此，如果你比竞争对手好 10%，你就会赢，而且很可能赢下整个市场。你需要抓住每一丝可能的优势……
– 你需要合作的所有公司都在这里。商务拓展不会发生在正式的会议室里，而是发生在非正式的咖啡时间、派对和人际关系中。
– 如果你在这里，你的人脉圈会比其它城市的圈子更早用上所有最新工具——Twitter、Foursquare、Quora、Nexus One 等等。这些网络在这里更早达到临界规模，因此对这里的早期采用者来说更有价值。你会比外面的人领先 3 个月以上，提前看到接下来会发生什么。想象一下，如果你没有亲身沉浸在米兰或巴黎今年的时装里，要怎么设计明年的服装。
当然，从别的地方起步也有可能打造一家优秀的消费互联网公司，但既然这些是赢家通吃的生意，你真的愿意在起步时就落后这么远吗？
For years I didn’t believe this. I thought that you could take advantage of the benefits of Boston, Seattle, NY, Austin – cheaper talent, no echo chamber, local Universities, etc.. But I give up. I found myself telling an entrepreneur why he had to be in Silicon Valley if he wanted to succeed. Most of my points are about Consumer Internet businesses…
I won’t belabor the obvious reasons – the Investors are here, the best engineers and entrepreneurs self-select and come here, Stanford and Berkeley, yadda yadda.
Instead, here are some points that you may not have considered:
– Especially on the Consumer Internet, modern businesses are becoming winner-take-all (thanks to leverage and network effects). Therefore, if you’re 10% better than the competition, you win, likely the whole market. You need every possible edge…
– All of the companies that you need to partner with are out here. Business development doesn’t happen in formal meetings. It happens in informal coffees, parties, and relationships.
– If you are here, your network will be using all of the latest tools – Twitter, Foursquare, Quora, Nexus One, etc., before other networks in other cities will. These networks hit critical mass here earlier and are thus more valuable to the early adopters here. You’ll have a 3-month+ head start on people outside to see what’s coming next. Imagine trying to design next year’s clothing without firsthand immersion in this year’s fashion, in Milan or Paris.
Sure, it’s possible to build a great Consumer Internet business starting out somewhere else, but given that these are winner-take-all businesses, do you want to start out that far behind the curve?