The World is Not Flat

Lots of People like to write and talk about how the world is being coming “flatter” and more accessible. In many ways this is true, however witness the growth of mega cities and you will understand this is not the case for business.  Start-ups in Particular!

Money and Culture:

When you are working on new products you need two things: funding and people who understand technology.  A culture of technology.  This is what the Silicon Valley has that no where else can match.  One of the advantages that is leveraged in the States is that there is high mobility between California, New York and Seattle.  Money moves.  Europe is still greatly stratified and each fund is tied much more firmly to its host nation.  This is in part due to custom and in part due to national programs for startups.

To Contrast the Scale of this Trend: “Silicon Valley’s ecosystem is currently 3-times larger than New York City, 4.5-times larger than London, 12.5-times larger than Berlin. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are 4.4-times more likely for their primary revenue stream to be Lead Generation, 3.6-times more likely for it to be virtual goods and 2.6-times less likely for it to be the rapidly fading model of license fees.”

Compare your City:

Startup Genome (link) is also offering a new ranking for the world’s top 25 startup ecosystems, ordered by their average throughput:

Here is a list, in ranked order by average throughput, of what we’ve found to be the 25 most active startup ecosystems around the world.

1. Silicon Valley (San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Jose, Oakland)
2. New York City
3. London
4. Toronto
5. Tel Aviv
6. Los Angeles
7. Singapore
8. Sao Paulo
9. Bangalore
10. Moscow
11. Paris
12. Santiago
13. Seattle
14. Madrid
15. Chicago
16. Vancouver
17. Berlin
18. Boston
19. Austin
20. Mumbai
21. Sydney
22. Melbourne
23. Warsaw
24. Washington D.C.
25. Montreal