Replicating Silicon Valley

VC bloggers are a growing category and I struggle to keep track of everyone who is doing it now. But honestly there are few, if any, that do it as well as Paul Graham who isn’t really a VC and who isn’t really a blogger either.

Paul is an entrepreneur who has formed Y Combinator to “microfund” first time entrepreneurs who are willing to drop everything and work night and day on an idea. I think Paul is still an entrepreneur at heart, and he’s playing a game most often considered angel investing. But I call him a VC because I think our industry needs more people like Paul working in it.

Paul is also not really a blogger.  He doesn’t post in the conventional sense.  He writes long essays when he feels the urge to post them. He doesn’t seem to be caught up in the techcrunch/memorandum/technorati groupthink which is refreshing.

So when Paul writes one of his long missives, I read them.

His latest two essays are really one long think piece on replicating Silicon Valley here in the US and overseas.

How To Be Silicon Valley

Why Startups Condense In America

I do take a bit of offense at Paul’s comments about New York City in this post on the Union Square Ventures weblog. I believe that after Silicon Valley and Boston, there is no city in the US that has a more vibrant startup economy than New York City and it is often underlooked as it was by Paul in his first essay. So I had to defend my turf.

#VC & Technology