Posting From The "Sad-assed Backwater"

I posted this quote today on my tumblog with the tumblr bookmarklet:

Sad_asssed

John Heilemann, who wrote the piece in NY Mag, wanted to know why it didn’t get on the "main stage" (that being this blog). Truth be told, it’s just too easy to post to Tumblr with the bookmarklet and I find myself doing that more and more.

But upon reflection, I cannot help myself. I am going to respond to some of the crazy assed (as opposed to sad assed) things John said in that article.

First of all, John uses me, Howard Lindzon, and Henry Blodget as his examples of NY-based "chicken littles" who are running around claiming the sky is falling. Nothing could be further from the truth. Howard, who lives in Phoenix the last time I checked, is starting something like a company a week. And Henry just launched NY’s version of Valleywag meets Techcrunch. And me, well I think you all know what I am up to.

Next, I take objection to the notion that failure is accepted more in the bay area than in NYC. That our  "wall street culture" rejects failure while silicon valley embraces it. Wall Street is full of people who have made a living failing and greed creates amnesia here in NYC just as much as it does on the west coast.

But this quote from Seth Goldstein put the icing on the cake for me.

“People in New York feel a chip on their shoulder because they’re not
in the center of this thing,” says Seth Goldstein, a longtime Silicon
Alley player now decamped to Marin County.

I’ve known Seth a long time and I don’t recall him ever having a chip on his shoulder when he lived in NYC. Another case of amnesia it seems.

Well I for one am happy to live and work in this sorry assed backwater that I call home. Silicon Valley is the mecca for sure, but there is plenty of great stuff going on in NYC right now and John’s web 2.0 story doesn’t ring true to me.

#VC & Technology