“Is the East coast (NYC primarily) becoming the new Silicon Valley?”
Always wanted to write a newspaper headline where the answer is a default “no.”
Okay, let’s lay some groundwork.
NYC has always had a healthy start-up ecosystem. And a lot of the fintech start-ups get their start in NYC natch. Because… well, because Wall St! Gravitational centers.
You want to be in technology? Silicon Valley!
You want to be in advertising? Madison Avenue!
You want to be in films? Hollywood!
You want to be in musicals? Broadway!
You want to marry your cousin where it’s socially acceptable? A… nyway, I digress.
Gravitational centers. NYC has always called to the FinTechs.
They call it the “The Great Resignation”, if you listen to narrative spun by those with an agenda. They call it also “The Great Migration”, if you listen to those with an axe to grind about California.
But here is a data point that doesn’t have an agenda driven by anything other than the need to hire software developers at funded start-ups and unicorns alike, US companies, basing themselves in NYC, and not just FinTech companies, that are hiring either in the US or the UK. With some hiring in Canada. There appears to be some bias against Canucks.
This is a subtle trend appearing on some job openings. You wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t paying attention.
English is the primary language of communication in the company. Lower wages in the UK. An untapped pool of educated software developers craving to get their paws on some of that sweet, sweet American lucre. No H1B visa applications. Only five hours time zone difference, which is not much worse than between NYC and SF.
And it is happening because of remote first tech companies. Outsourcing rarely saves costs, and for the most part, just makes for a worse product, especially in innovative tech areas. And it doesn’t matter where you outsource too.
Putting aside cultural and language differences, outsourcing brings a different incentive to the playing field that centers around things like “don’t piss off the client, just give them exactly what they want!” Outsourced companies (the vendor) become “people pleasers” in an abusive relationship with a sociopathic entity (the client). Every time. You’re lying to yourself if you deny that.
But if you just pull in employees, from regions that are culturally and liguinstically similar to yours, where, just because they speak English, you don’t have to explain what a snowman is, you can recruit from both regions.
The interesting thing I actually notice is that the compensation on offer is egalitarian. Same base money remuneration on both sides of the Atlantic. And the US company offering secondary benefits to US employees as the UK employees get by a matter of law.
I am not sure how long this trend line will continue, or whether the benefits and remuneration will skew inappropriately once less enlightened companies get in the mix. But it is an interesting data point.