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Could Atlanta Buy A Silicon Valley? The Answers

Feb 28, 09 in Startups   19 Comments

With a URL with the extension of "maybe" Paul Graham wrote an interesting essay about how a city could go about buying a Silicon Valley.  Towards the end he poses a series of question any city should ask if the scheme will work for them.  Here is my take on the answers.

Do you have good weather?

With the exception of July and August when the heat and humidity forces everyone indoors, the answer to this question is yes.

Do people live downtown, or have they abandoned the center for the suburbs?

Partially yes.  The vast majority of Atlanta's 5.5 million people do not live downtown.  But a lot do.  According to a recent TAG survey 38% of Georgia entrepreneurs said they were located with 10 miles of Technology Square in Midtown.  Sixty percent were within 15 miles.  I believe this is dense enough.

Would the city be described as "hip" and "tolerant," or as reflecting "traditional values?"

With the exception of small pockets inside the perimeter you can't exactly call Atlanta hip and trendy.  It is a traditional town in a traditional state.  More tolerance is needed in the city too busy to hate.

Are there good universities nearby?

Without a doubt.  Three major research universities are within five miles of each other.  Emory, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State. Major strength of Atlanta.

Are there walkable neighborhoods?

Yes.  Despite the way some folks drive around Atlanta doing 60 miles an hour on 30 mile per hour streets, there are walkable neighborhoods.  Morningside, where I live, is quite walkable.  It's part of the reason I live there.  So are adjoining neighborhoods like Virginia Highland and Midtown.  Midtown being most important.  It is literally work/live.  And adjacent to Georgia Tech.

Would nerds feel at home?

I don't know.  I am not a nerd.  I am a semi-geek.  More of a business guy.  But I did once see a coed walking down 5th Street with a "Talk Nerdy To Me" t-shirt on.  So am going to give it a non-qualified to answer yes.

So there you have it.  Hipness aside, Atlanta seems like the type of town that might be able pull off Paul's plan if it wanted to do so. 

What do you think the answers are to Paul's questions for Atlanta or whatever town you happen to reside?

Comments

Lance, I agree with your assessment of Atlanta. I firmly believe the technology community would embrace the task. The question to be asked is, will the local/state governments open their arms to the idea.

Saba Long  |  Feb 28, 09 at 11:53 AM

Paul Graham is a great thinker. Quite provocative.

Most of the ingredients are already here. Georgia Tech/Emory ATDC, VentureLab, the Georgia Research Alliance, the GRA Venture fund, angel groups such as ATA, Sereph, Shotput, early stage VCs Noro and TTV and an active community.

If the IPO markets ever open up, companies such as CardioMEMs and Suniva could help put us back on the map.

We now need to execute on the ingredients we already have to ensure a sustainable startup community.

Paul Freet  |  Feb 28, 09 at 12:35 PM

I'm not sure if "Are you just like San Francisco" is really the right set of criteria. I don't think it matters how cool you are. Although Midtown Atlanta has been developing into a more vibrant urban area in recent years I think the housing/condo crash is likely to torpedo it's development anyway.

The most important thing that a government can do is create the right legal environment that is conducive to technological innovation. This means making it easy for people to form companies, making it easy for people to dissolve them, and making it easy for people to move between them, in particular by preventing established ones from monopolizing people and ideas.

In California, employment intellectual property contracts have a very limited scope by statute. Generally speaking, work that people do on their own time with their own resources that is not directly related to their jobs does not become the property of their employers. There are many states that stand around scratching their heads about why they don't have a lot of startup activity while all the engineers are living in contractual situations where they would literally have to work at a fast food restaurant for two years before any creative idea they had about technology would not automatically become someone else's property at the instant of its conception.

Also, in California non-compete contracts are extremely limited. The bottom line is that you cannot use employment contracts to prevent your employees from going off and joining a startup, even if that startup competes with you. That is the sort of environment that you need to have if you are going to enable competitive innovation. IF you don't, all of the smart people end up glued to whoever the big employer was in the beginning and there is no way to break up the status quo.

Innovation is disruptive to established interests - and if the legal system is created with only established interests in mind you can't expect a whole lot of innovation. Georgia's business law is more modern than some states I've lived in but it is not as sophisticated as California's.

Tom Cross  |  Feb 28, 09 at 12:43 PM

Tom, employment contracts are also unenforceable in Georgia. (Except as consideration for the sale of a company)

Non-compete covenants are usually included in employment agreements, but can essentially be ignored. Companies hope that people think they are bound by them, but they are not.

Paul Freet  |  Feb 28, 09 at 12:51 PM

The laws about forming corporations in Atlanta are 99% the same as in California, so that's clearly not the problem.

I see it more as a critical mass issue. Paul's essay goes into a lot of details about what is needed.

Over the years, many places have tried. My (distant) experience with those efforts is that it's tough for the government to think outside the box. Government (local or state) needs to define rules and then abide by them. That's pretty much the opposite of selection, which is what is needed to encourage great local startups.

For instance, the SBA loans don't help high-tech startups. They may be ok for brick-and-mortar stores, which by the way provides at least as many jobs as high-tech.

Alain Raynaud  |  Feb 28, 09 at 03:58 PM

If you like this article, you might want to 'defend Atlanta's honor' here, in the Hacker News discussion about it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=498431

Russell Jurney  |  Feb 28, 09 at 05:34 PM

Could Atlanta Buy A Silicon Valley? The Answer is NO.

Bob Pi  |  Feb 28, 09 at 06:25 PM

"Would nerds feel at home?"

Have you really managed to stay out of downtown every labor day weekend? You need to stop by some time. It's a treat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragoncon

Ryan  |  Feb 28, 09 at 08:31 PM

Ryan: Touché. Like I said, I am not a true nerd, my lack of attendance at Dragon Con is evidence of that. Perhaps I need to hang out and not go to the beach this year.

Lance  |  Feb 28, 09 at 10:29 PM

IMO, a few hours in the lobby of the Hyatt during Dragon Con is worth a few days at the beach in terms of entertainment and relaxation :)

Russell Jurney  |  Feb 28, 09 at 10:51 PM

Weak. Really weak.

I think Atlanta is a great city and it would be great to get more high tech stuff here but we're gonna have to make much stronger arguments than that to make it happen.

Robert  |  Feb 28, 09 at 11:42 PM

I think there should be a question regarding population size. Chapel Hill/Carrboro, NC is an unqualified yes to every one of the questions above, but it's probably not large enough, population-wise, despite its proximity to Raleigh.

TJ Stankus  |  Feb 28, 09 at 11:52 PM

Robert, the purpose of the post was not to make a strong argument (though I think you can find one contained throughout the FoG body of work). Purpose was to honestly answer six simple questions.

Lance  |  Mar 01, 09 at 08:36 AM

As an Atlanta native who went to Georgia Tech, moved to California, and now lives in Austin, I would have to say no. There are isolated pockets of the city which foster technology development, but overall the city is far too traditional (in every sense) to become a development hub.

Chris  |  Mar 01, 09 at 02:26 PM

Well I actually like the weather in Atlanta...but I don't kid myself that it compares to weather in Silicon Valley. IMHO Atlanta scores well in all categories except one...it's somewhat traditional. I'm a big believer in Richard Florida's "Creative Class" ideas (http://www.creativeclass.com/) and I think Atlanta metro suffers from a bad rep in this area that is somewhat unwarranted...but regardless our rep definitely impacts our ability to attract members of the "creative class" to live and work here.

Mike Parks  |  Mar 01, 09 at 07:04 PM

I agree with just about everything here, Lance. My only caveat is on the "hip and trendy" bit - I think Atlanta is hip and trendy. The only thing about it is, the hip and trendy aren't involved in tech, they're usually involved in entertainment. There are a few designers in that crowd - new artists have to have flashy websites. But the geeks and the hip and trendy don't usually run together. And there aren't a lot of "hybrid" fashionista-geek types here either. And even the majority of those hybrids I know aren't into starting companies. So in short - the ingredients are there, they just haven't fully mixed yet.

I think we're on the way. There are more and more efforts to encourage and support young entrepreneurship (tech entrepreneurship specifically), and a lot of things are happening that are brining the geeks together with the hip and trendy so they can rub off on each other. If that keeps up, Atlanta could see a hyrbid geek culture emerge similar to that of the valley.

-M.

Mike Gresham  |  Mar 01, 09 at 10:23 PM

Lance,

Good discussion points! I graduated from Tech, lived in Atlanta for a couple of years after, and then moved to SF. I think one of the issues with Paul Graham's post is that it's going to be really, really tough to match the Bay Area on those points. For example, basically all of San Francisco is one walkable neighborhood - that's a 7x7 sq mi area, and walkscore calls it the most walkable city in America. It's dramatically different than Atlanta's walkable sections (and almost any other city).

I think Atlanta has a lot of things going for it that SF doesn't, and those obviously aren't on the list. There's several things you could list that Atlanta has that would appeal to tech nerds that SF doesn't have.

Derek  |  Mar 03, 09 at 12:49 PM

Derek: I agree with what you are saying about SF's walkability. Only seriously water bound metros such as Manhattan even come close.

But Silicon Valley? Driven the 101 too many times.

Lance Weatherby  |  Mar 03, 09 at 04:31 PM

Agreed - Silicon Valley is no better/worse than Atlanta for walkability...so now I'm confused why that point is even on Paul Graham's list and why I brought it up :)

Derek  |  Mar 03, 09 at 11:01 PM

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