Much has been made of the growing (bubbling?) New York City tech scene, what with Tumblr, Foursquare, and such a supportive mayor, to the point where some contend it’s preferable to Silicon Valley for up-and-coming innovators. For college grads hoping to break into the hot, lucrative field, the decision between the coasts is becoming increasingly difficult, but one former intern at Apple and Facebook has cracked the code. New York it is, for three reasons: a shorter commute, diversity, and “a higher percentage of females.”
Betabeat points us to engineer Mike Miller’s “Why I Chose New York,” which cites “a better dating scene” as one reason he’s taking a job at Palantir, which, I don’t know, is “like Pinterest, but for blacksmiths” or something. Miller writes:
A direct result of the lack of diversity is that there are very few women in Silicon Valley. A highly unscientific study found that the ratio was about three males : two females. Settling down isn’t on my immediate horizon, but I want to be in a place where going on dates is a reasonable possibility. NYC has much more favorable odds: Census data pegs the ratio at roughly 52 percent females : 48 percent males. (A note to those who will undoubtedly criticize me for talking about gender in Silicon Valley: this blog post is about why I chose New York, being a straight male.)
At least one person on the Hacker News message board concurs: “NYC has so many women. Beautiful women.” Maybe tech really is the new Wall Street.
